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The  Spirit  of  Life 

a  Book  of  Essays  by 

Mowry  Saben 


MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 
NEW  YORK         MCMXIV 


COPYRIGHT  1914  BY 
MITCHELL  KENNERLEY; 


Contents 


L  Nature  I 

II.  Society  and  Solitude  48 

III.  Heroes  and  Hero -Worship  79 

IV.  Morals  98 
V.  Sex  137 

VI.  Literature  and  Democracy  177 

VII.  The  Superstition  of  Heredity  aoz 

VIII.  The  Loneliness  of  Life  *«3 

IX.  CoMerrarism  and  Reform  ^37 


20188  S 


NATURE 

/"T"VHERE  are  many  great  truths  that  can  be 
expressed  only  by  means  of  paradox. 
The  opposite  of  nearly  every  assertion  that 
can  be  made  will  be  true  to  some  point  of  view, 
and,  when  a  person  speaks  of  Truth,  it  should 
always  be  noted  from  what  point  of  view  he 
speaks.  Truth  has  not  one  side  merely,  nor 
even  two  sides,  but  many,  and  all  of  these  dif- 
ferent sides  must  be  seen  before  one  can  pose 
as  an  Absolute  Philosopher.  Idealism  and 
Realism  are  both  true,  in  a  sense ;  the  Idealist 
and  the  Realist  both  have  something  to  say  for 
themselves.  Optimism  and  pessimism  repre- 
sent each  a  half-truth.  There  is  not  a  creed 
in  the  world  which  is  not  partly  true.  The 
error  of  the  partisan  and  the  sectarian  is  that 
they  insist  they  have  all  the  Truth,  or,  in  other 
words,  a  truth  which  will  admit  of  no  modifi- 
cation, which,  in  the  light  of  experience,  is 
absurd.  There  is  always  a  larger  viewpoint 
than  the  one  held.  The  true  philosopher  can 
1 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

be  neither  a  partisan  nor  a  sectarian.  He  sees 
too  much  to  admit  of  such  easy  classification. 
Nowhere  do  we  find  the  principle  which  I 
have  stated  exemplified  more  strikingly  than 
in  the  different  attitudes  which  have  been,  and 
are  still,  held  toward  Nature.  One  thinker 
maintains  that  Nature  is  good;  another  main- 
tains that  Nature  is  evil.  One  sees  in  Nature 
the  only  good;  another  thinks  that  we  must 
look  elsewhere  for  all  our  good.  The  lover 
of  Nature  believes  that  she  possesses  the  eth- 
ical law  for  our  guidance;  the  sceptic  often 
declares  that  Nature  is  minus  an  ethical  prin- 
ciple. And  so  we  find  a  philosopher,  like 
Spinoza,  unable  to  discover  evil  anywhere  in 
Nature,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  a  philoso- 
pher, like  John  Stuart  Mill,  launches  a  thun- 
derbolt at  the  Nature-lovers,  by  declaring  that 
every  evil  found  in  man  may  be  ascribed  to 
Nature  as  well.  Thoreau  finds  in  wood  and 
field  a  certain  friendliness,  while  Darwin  finds 
everlasting  warfare.  Emerson  finds  Nature 
reflecting  the  serenity  of  his  own  spirit,  while 
Carlyle,  gazing  upward  at  the  stars,  is  forced 
to  cry  out,  "Ech,  it's  a  sad  sight."  Margaret 
Fuller  said  that  she  accepted  the  universe,  but 
von  Hartmann  thought  that  man  ought  to 


NATURE 

destroy  it,  so  far  as  it  lay  in  his  power.  The 
objects  of  Nature  are  occasionally  greeted  with 
contradictory  emotions  even  by  the  poets.  To 
Byron  the  stars  were  "unutterably  bright,"  but 
Sir  Henry  Wotton  refers  to  them  as  the 

"Meaner  beauties  of  the  night 
That  poorly  satis  fie  our  eies." 

Young  called  them  the  "eyes"  of  heaven,  but 
Heine  saw  in  them  only  "golden  lies  in  deep 
blue  nothingness."  Swinburne  and  Byron  re- 
joiced in  the  strength  of  the  sea,  but  Oscar 
Wilde  was  humorously  disappointed  in  the 
Atlantic.  Wordsworth  wrote, 

"Two  Voices  are  there;    one  is  of  the  sea, 
One  of  the  mountains,  each  a  mighty  Voice." 

He  found  joy  in 

"all  the  mighty   world 

Of  eye  and  ear, — both  what  they  half  create 
And  half  perceive," 

and  he  says  that  he  was 

"well-pleased  to  recognize, 
In  Nature  and  the  language  of  the  sense, 
The  anchor  of  my  purest  thoughts,  the  nurse, 
The  guide,  the  guardian  of  my  heart,  and  soul 
Of  all  my  moral  being." 
3 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

But  the  anti-Wordsworthians  declare  that 
Wordsworth  found  in  nature  only  what  he 
discovered  in  his  own  mind. 

What  must  we  say  to  these  contradictories? 
Only  this,  that  all  of  our  thinkers  and  observ- 
ers have  been  right  from  their  individual  points 
of  view.  They  have  all  seen  certain  sides  of 
the  Truth.  Nature  is  both  good  and  evil; 
friendly  and  hostile;  ethical  and  immoral; 
something  and  nothing.  Nature  is  the  mother 
of  physical  man,  yet  the  mind  of  Humanity  is 
the  author  of  that  nature  which  is  a  part  of 
our  knowledge. 

The  reality  of  Nature  for  us  is  just  the  real- 
ity of  our  own  minds.  The  World  is  the  con- 
tent of  the  mind,  an  apparition  of  the  senses. 
I  do  not  mean  to  assert  that  it  is  nothing  more, 
but  Nature,  as  we  know  her,  is  not  a  thing-in- 
itself.  Nature  is  a  process  of  Evolution,  a 
struggle,  one  may  say,  to  bring  Truth  and 
Beauty  to  consciousness.  Man  is  the  culmina- 
tion of  the  process,  and  only  in  him  may  any 
ultimate  Reality  be  found.  The  earth  is  now 
in  man's  hands  to  do  with  as  he  wills.  It  is 
his,  and  the  fulness  thereof.  If  Nature  ap- 
pear to  him  unlovable  in  some  of  her  aspects, 
it  is  his  business  to  make  her  lovable.  If  the 
4 


NATURE 

animals  are  ferocious,  they  may  be  slain.  If 
electricity  threatens,  it  can  be  tamed.  If  the 
winds  and  the  waters  bear  heavily  upon  us,  if 
the  earthquake  still  comes  to  jar  the  habita- 
tions and  lives  of  us,  it  only  means  that  here 
are  so  many  problems  of  the  mind  to  study; 
so  many  forces  to  be  overcome,  or  made  in- 
nocuous. And  this  is  just  what  man  has  been 
doing  throughout  the  ages.  We  have  been 
learning  to  subdue  Nature  and  make  her  obedi- 
ent to  our  will;  and  if  there  still  be,  as  there 
are,  recalcitrant  forces,  the  fact  only  proves 
that  we  are  still  at  school,  studying  the  mar- 
vellous constitutions  of  our  own  minds,  of 
which  Nature  is  a  part.  Nature,  as  we  know 
her,  I  repeat,  is  only  a  reflection  of  our  own 
minds,  the  partial  content  thereof,  and  as  man 
comes  to  know  himself  with  an  ever  increasing 
thoroughness,  he  also  comes  to  learn  the  se- 
crets of  Nature,  and  becomes  the  master  of 
that  which,  in  the  limitation  of  his  knowledge, 
seems  to  lie  outside  of  himself. 

Whether  there  be  any  reality  in  Nature  out- 
side of  the  human  mind  is  a  much-mooted 
question  among  philosophers.  Believing  as  I 
do  in  Personal  Idealism,  all  Reality  for  me  lies 
in  a  society  of  selves,  although  I  am  not  pre- 
5 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

pared  to  say  that  all  of  them  are  human. 
They  may  be,  however.  A  dog  and  a  lily  may 
both  be,  for  aught  that  I  know,  undeveloped 
men.  But  I  am  convinced  that,  apart  from 
minds,  whether  regarded  as  human,  infra- 
human,  or  superhuman,  there  can  be  nothing 
real  from  a  metaphysical  point  of  view.  The 
voices  of  the  mountains  and  the  sea,  which 
Wordsworth  rightly  declares  mighty,  are  only 
the  accents  of  man.  The  fragrance  of  the  flow- 
ers, and  the  brightness  of  the  sun,  and  the  glory 
of  the  moon  and  stars,  are  as  human  as  a  poem 
by  Shelley,  or  a  play  by  Shakespeare.  The 
world  of  Nature  is  for  us  a  human  world, 
and  if  it  be  anything  more  than  this,  we  shall 
never  know  what  it  is,  for  one  can  no  more  get 
out  of  his  consciousness  than  he  can  in  this 
life  get  out  of  his  skin.  The  psychology  of 
a  lion,  as  known  to  the  lion,  may  be  a  very 
different  psychology  from  the  one  known  to 
the  man  of  science,  but  it  is  only  the  lion  which 
man  "knows  that  exists  for  man.  The  roar  of  the 
king  of  beasts  may  to  himself  sound  musical, 
it  may  even  have  certain  meanings  impossible 
for  us  to  divine,  but,  if  all  this  be  true,  it  will 
not  be  profitable  for  us  to  consider  the  matter, 
for  we  shall  never  be  able  to  learn  the  truth. 
6 


NATURE 

The  Reality  of  any  animal,  if  any  animal  be 
real  in  a  metaphysical  sense,  does  not  lie  in 
the  apparition  of  our  senses,  but  in  some 
deeper  self,  or  soul,  of  the  animal  that  is  for 
us  at  present  unknown  and  unknowable. 

Nature  is  not  God,  as  those  who  regard 
religion  with  irreverence  are  apt  to  fancy; 
Nature  is  only  a  field  upon  which  we  wrestle 
with  ourselves,  until,  through  experience,  the 
secrets  of  existence  are  revealed.  There  is, 
then,  on  the  outside  of  us,  no  thorn  for  the 
flesh,  no  hostile  frown,  no  diabolical  menace. 
A  person  wholly  benignant  might  always  find 
Nature  wreathed  in  smiles.  We  find  in  Nature 
only  what  we  bring  to  her,  and  if  in  her  de- 
mesne Wordsworth  made  great  discoveries,  it 
means  only  that  Wordsworth  was  a  very  great 
poet,  with  a  happy  faculty  for  penetrating  the 
depths  of  himself.  This  is  not  to  assert  that 
his  primrose  by  the  river's  brim,  or  the  daffo- 
dils that  he  found  waving  so  gleefully  on  the 
shore  of  the  lake,  were  altogether  the  creations 
of  his  poetic  imagination.  But  the  difference 
between  the  primrose,  as  seen  by  Wordsworth, 
and  the  primrose,  as  seen  by  Peter  Bell,  to 
whom  it  was  a  primrose  and  nothing  more,  was 
just  the  difference  between  the  selves  of  the 
7 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

two  men.     To  Peter  Bell,   according  to  our 
Poet, 

"A  primrose  by  the  river's  brim, 

A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him, 

And  it  was  nothing  more." 

Peter  Bell  could  make  nothing  of  the  prim- 
rose beyond  the  fact  that  it  was  a  primrose. 
He  knew  enough  to  know  the  flower  when  he 
saw  it.  But  his  difference  from  Wordsworth 
lay  in  his  inability  to  derive  from  the  primrose 
the  inspiration  that  came  to  Wordsworth. 
The  trouble  with  him  was  that,  unlike  the  poet, 
he  had  no  subjective  primrose  in  his  soul,  and, 
having  none,  he  was  from  a  poetic  point  of 
view  a  dullard. 

A  Subjective  Idealist  holds  that  one  creates 
out  of  his  own  mind  all  that  he  sees,  and  hears, 
and  feels.  And  so  he  does.  But  one  must 
not  infer  too  hastily  from  this  truth  that  the 
influence,  or  that  mysterious  something  which 
leads  to  a  poet's  vision,  comes  wholly  from 
the  mind  of  the  individual  himself.  The  sen- 
sitive plant  that  Shelley  has  immortalized  ex- 
isted in  his  mind  alone,  but  it  may  be  that 
something  which  possessed  reality,  quite  apart 
from  Shelley's  mind,  touched  his  conscious- 
ness, and  helped  to  create  the  vision  that  led 
8 


NATURE 

to  so  charming  a  piece  of  verse.  The  rose  of 
which  the  poets  sing  does  not  exist  outside  of 
the  minds  of  the  poets,  but  there  is  something 
there  when  the  poet  looks  which  enables  him  to 
see  the  rose.  Even  the  jagged  rocks  of  the 
mountain-side  may  possess  some  reality  apart 
from  the  mind  that  envisages  them,  or  the 
sense  that  greets  them.  It  is  the  mind  that 
makes  the  mountain,  and  apart  from  the  mind 
there  is  no  mountain ;  but  just  what  the  reality 
of  the  mountain  is,  who  can  say? 

The  mistake  of  the  philosophical  Realist  lies 
in  his  assumption  that  realities  other  than 
mental  exist.  The  conception  that  such  reali- 
ties exist  is  nonsense,  for  nothing  can  exist 
except  for  a  mind,  and  all  material  forms, 
upon  analysis,  dissolve  into  attributes,  which, 
apart  from  the  mind  that  conceives  them,  have 
no  validity.  A  thing  itself,  apart  from  its  at- 
tributes, is  unthinkable.  A  table,  apart  from 
the  qualities  which  are  purely  mental,  and  are 
what  we  mean  by  a  table,  cannot  exist.  With- 
out a  mind  no  table  is  conceivable-  Its  size,  its 
position,  its  hardness  are  only  a  congeries  of 
mental  attributes.  In  the  case  of  a  living  ob- 
ject, such  as  an  animal  or  a  vegetable,  there  is 
a  slight  difference  in  the  problem  that  calls  for 
9 


THE  SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

solution.  But,  unless  we  can  conceive  of  an 
animal,  or  vegetable,  having  life  in  itself,  the 
realistic  attitude  is,  even  towards  them,  equally 
untenable.  And  if  these  objects  do  have  life 
in  themselves,  then  they  possess  minds,  and 
self-knowledge.  I  am  personally  constrained 
to  believe  that  every  so-called  living  thing  has 
knowledge,  or,  at  least,  a  subconscious 
knowledge  of  itself;  and  it  is  at  this  point 
that  Realism  might  score  a  partial  victory,  if 
it  were  able  to  emerge  from  the  metaphysical 
fog  in  which  it  is  now  enveloped.  The  weak- 
ness of  many  idealistic  systems  of  philosophy 
is  that  they  are,  logically,  solipsisms.  They 
are  not  able  to  conceive  anything  outside  of  an 
ego  which  is  either  human  or  divine,  and,  logi- 
cally, every  ego  to  a  philosopher  like  Fichte, 
for  whom  I  have,  let  me  confess,  a  great  re- 
spect, can  be  none  other  than  an  apparition  of 
the  philosopher  himself.  Hegel  postulates  an 
Absolute,  but,  after  all,  Hegel  was  his  own  Ab- 
solute. Most  idealistic  systems  are  not  able, 
logically,  to  get  beyond  the  individual  self. 
They  are  not  able  to  find  the  other  selves; 
they  are  not  able  to  find  Nature.  Idealism 
when  subjective  is  logical,  but  barren.  Realism 
is  illogical,  but  it  has  borne  some  fruit  in 
10 


NATURE 

science.  Both  theories  are  only  assumptions, 
although  in  each  one  finds  a  necessary  assump- 
tion. The  truth  lies  in  a  synthesis  of  the  two 
points  of  view,  by  which  I  mean  a  synthesis  of 
their  visions.  All  is  mind,  or  self-knowledge — 
that  is  the  truth  of  Idealism.  There  is  more 
than  the  individual  self,  or  even  than  a  God- 
self,  and  its  consciousness — that  is  the  truth  of 
Realism.  The  Gordian  Knot  of  Philosophy 
cannot  be  untied,  but  it  may  be  cut.  I  con- 
ceive that  Nature,  in  its  Reality,  consists  of  a 
society  of  selves,  each  of  which  possesses  self- 
knowledge,  and  the  capacity  for  being  influ- 
enced by  the  other  selves  through  the  faculty 
of  sympathy.  I  am  well  aware  that  there  are 
philosophers  who  will  laugh  over  what  will 
seem  to  them  a  naive  method  of  philosophiz- 
ing, but  if  I  may  be  allowed  to  contribute  even 
an  atom  to  the  gaiety  and  humor  of  sadly  over- 
burdened philosophers  I  shall  feel  that  I  have 
not  lived  in  vain. 

Just  how  the  different  selves  influence  one 
another  is,  of  course,  another  problem.  It 
must  lie  in  some  element  of  a  common  nature, 
and,  as  I  have  said,  the  one  element  which  all 
selves  may  possess,  at  least  potentially,  is  sym- 
pathy. There  must  be  also  some  common  vi- 
11 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

sion,  and  in  this  vision  the  element  of  sympathy 
may  be  seen  as  the  light  of  lights.  We  under- 
stand each  other  to  just  the  extent  that  we  are 
able  to  sympathize  with  each  other.  The  per- 
son who  has  no  sympathy  for  another  person 
has  no  understanding  of  him.  They  both  live, 
for  all  practical  purposes,  in  different  worlds. 
The  understanding  that  we  have  of  the  ani- 
mal world  is  of  sympathy  all  compact.  I  have 
often  thought  that  the  first  man  who  conceived 
the  notion  of  taming  an  elephant  must  have 
been  a  person  largely  endowed  with  the  ele- 
ment of  sympathy,  for  otherwise  there  would 
seemingly  have  been  more  elephant  than  man 
upon  the  scene  where  the  process  of  taming 
took  place.  Our  knowledge  of  plants,  too,  is 
based  upon  sympathy.  No  one  could  have 
mastered  the  secrets  of  grains  and  flowers 
who  had  not  a  love  for  them.  Of  none  of 
these  forms  of  animal  and  vegetable  life  have 
we  any  absolute  knowledge.  The  grass  of  the 
field  is  only  grass  to  us,  but  what  it  may  be 
to  itself  we  cannot  ascertain;  but  it  is  sympa- 
thy that  brings  the  poet  to  the  grass-blade,  and 
it  may  be  that  through  sympathy  the  poet 
really  does  penetrate  a  little  way  into  the 
grassy-secret.  At  any  rate,  however  this  may 
12 


NATtTRE 

be,  and  it  will  not  be  profitable  to  pursue  a 
discussion  that  must  deal  with  unknowables,  it 
is  certainly  true  that  the  genius  of  a  great 
Nature-poet,  like  Wordsworth  or  Shelley,  lies 
in  the  possession  of  a  sympathetic  character 
that  can  be  touched  to  fine  issues  by  the  sub- 
tile influences  that  well  up  in  the  world  of  out- 
of-doors. 

It  should  now  be  apparent  why  a  valiant 
sympathy  and  love  for  Nature  is  so  essential 
for  our  welfare.  While  there  is  a  world 
within  us  which  is  not  of  Nature,  an  Ideal 
World,  from  which  we  learn  the  nature  of 
what  we  are,  and  through  which  we  acquire  the 
ability  to  paint  the  impressions  that  come  to  us 
from  without  with  a  gorgeousness  of  color  un- 
known to  the  other  self-realities,  we  shall  never 
be  very  wise  unless  we  learn  to  appreciate  the 
raw  material  that  Nature  provides  for  our 
sustenance.  It  was  all  very  well  for  Oscar 
Wilde  to  assert  that  he  hated  Nature,  and 
there  was  something  refreshing  in  his  whim- 
sicalities, so  paradoxically  conveyed,  when  one 
noted  how  much  pompous  flattery  of  wildness 
there  was  in  his  day,  and  is,  even  yet,  for  that 
matter;  nevertheless  everyone  is  well  aware 
that  his  professed  hatred  was,  for  the  most 
IS 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

part,  but  a  mere  pose.  The  Art  which  he 
placed  above  Nature  had  to  go  to  Nature  for 
its  raw  material,  while  to  interpret  Nature  hu- 
manly was  a  large  part  of  its  mission. 
Turner's  sunsets  may  have  been  something 
quite  unknown  to  the  common  vision,  but 
Turner  would  never  have  been  able  to  make 
his  canvas  glow  with  those  rich  sunset  scenes 
if  there  had  been  in  Nature  no  real  setting  of 
the  sun.  And  if  it  be  true,  as  Wilde  said, 
that  Morris's  poorest  workman  could  make  a 
better  seat  than  Nature,  it  was  still  necessary 
for  Morris's  workman  to  go  to  Nature  for  the 
material  of  which  the  seat  was  made.  Mr. 
Howells,  in  his  plea  for  realism  in  fiction,  has 
said  that  the  difference  between  the  realists 
and  romanticists  of  fiction  is  that  the  former 
prefer  a  real  grasshopper  to  one  made  of 
pasteboard,  while  the  latter  prefer  the  imita- 
tion. Whether  Mr.  Howells  is  right  or  not, 
I  shall  not  pause  to  discover,  for  it  is  not  sig- 
nificant, so  far  as  my  purpose  is  concerned, 
but  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  there  are  a  great 
many  people  who  prefer  artificial  things  to 
things  that  live.  These  folks  prefer  a  world 
of  unreality,  which  their  fancy  conjures  up,  to 
the  great  world  out-of-doors.  At  heart,  such 
14 


NATURE 

persons  are  pessimists,  and  out  of  them,  as  a 
rule,  very  little  that  is  wholesome  can  come. 

I  have  admitted  that  one  may  speak  both 
optimistically  and  pessimistically  concerning 
Nature,  and  speak  truthfully.  Let  me  now 
speak  optimistically,  even  if  later  I  am  obliged 
to  modify  somewhat  my  worded  enthusiasm. 
Nature  then,  I  will  say,  can  be  trusted.  Seen 
through  the  lenses  of  man,  she  is  beautiful, 
and,  with  human  assistance,  works  for  good. 
In  the  large  matters  Nature  is  absolutely  re- 
liable. Every  morning  at  the  appointed  hour 
the  great  sun  comes  out  of  the  east,  and  at  the 
appointed  hour  he  ushers  in  the  night  by  retir- 
ing to  his  chamber  in  the  west.  The  stars 
move  in  their  mighty  orbits,  and  fulfill  their 
destiny.  The  moon  is  never  disappointing  in 
her  sweet  serenity.  The  farmer  sows  his  seeds, 
knowing  that  the  seasons  will  not  betray  him. 
The  sun  and  the  rain  will  ripen  his  fruits  and 
grains.  And  if  it  be  said  in  reply  that  drouth 
often  destroys  the  work  of  his  hands,  that 
freshet  and  wind  and  insect  are  mighty  for 
evil,  it  is  sufficient  to  retort  that  the  human 
mind  has  not  yet  learned  to  enter  into  full  part- 
nership with  the  earth-mother  of  its  vision. 
Nature  is  very  impartial  to  her  children,  but 
15 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

to  man  belong!  the  intellect  and  the  strength 
of  arm  that  can  bend  all  things  to  the  measure 
of  his  will.  No  matter  how  severe  the  indict- 
ment which  a  pessimist  may  draw,  it  remains 
true  that  Nature's  bounty  feeds,  clothes  and 
lodges  one  and  a  half  billions  of  human  beings 
every  year.  Without  Nature's  genial  fecund- 
ity, the  earth  would  soon  be  a  tomb  of  grinning 
skeletons.  Tickle  the  soil  with  a  hoe,  and  the 
old  mother  smiles.  Nature  is  the  material 
prosperity  of  man.  For  ages  she  kept  hidden 
safe  and  sound  those  shining  particles  of  gold 
and  silver  which  are  now  employed  in  com- 
merce, sometimes  to  our  hurt,  as  measures  of 
value.  One  might  fancy  that  she  hid  them 
because  she  did  not  desire  to  see  their  beauty 
despoiled  by  commercial  greed.  When  sur- 
veyed broadly,  Nature  is  always  beautiful. 
The  heavens  declare  her  glory,  and  the  earth 
is  more  than  an  art-gallery  in  its  magnificence 
of  color.  Nature  paints  the  golden  year  with 
a  skill  that  the  greatest  artist  may  justly  envy. 
All  her  works  are  fair.  The  green  grass 
creeping  in  the  springtime,  the  sweet-scented 
lilac,  the  trees  with  their  myriads  of  leaves, 
the  flowers  that  spot  the  meadows,  and  fringe 
the  dusty  wayside,  the  limpid  pools,  the  mur- 
16 


NATURE 

muring  brooks,  the  fast-flowing  rivers,  the  gray 
deserts  stretching  away  into  the  far  distance, 
the  wrinkled  mountains  wearing  their  azure 
haloes,  the  mobile  sea  beating  with  thunder 
upon  the  shore,  the  curtain  of  the  clouds,  the 
gentle  showers  of  summer,  the  drifting  snows 
of  winter,  the  bursting  orchards  of  the  autumn, 
the  golden  radiance  of  the  day's  sunshine,  the 
fairy-play  of  the  moon  at  night,  the  glittering 
of  the  stars  in  the  sky-immensities — the  fair- 
ness that  inheres  in  our  sweetest  thought  is 
found  in  all  of  these  things. 

The  deep-seeing  eye  discovers  no  ugliness 
in  Nature's  plan.  There  are  comic  effects,  and 
there  is  ugliness  in  incompleted  things,  but  the 
end  is  always  like  a  perfect  statue.  The  ich- 
thyosaurus, the  plesiosaurus  and  the  ptero- 
dactyl, "the  dragons  of  the  prime  that  tore 
each  other  in  their  slime,"  are  passed  away; 
higher  and  fairer  forms  have  succeeded  them, 
and  to-day  whatsoever  is  grim  and  forbidding 
among  the  fauna  of  the  earth  Humanity  is 
learning  to  destroy,  that  the  sight  may  not  be 
offended  by  monstrosities.  The  monsters  were 
only  experiments,  the  way-stations,  perhaps,  of 
selves  mounting  to  higher  forms.  Each  form 
on  the  road  to  the  human  has  been  a  hint,  a 
17 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

prophecy,  of  an  all-absorbing  purpose  on  the 
part  of  life-forces  to  reach  the  uplands  of 
being.  The  mineral  kingdom  would  rise  to 
the  vegetable,  the  vegetable  to  the  animal,  and 
the  animal  to  Man.  In  the  realm  of  phenom- 
ena there  has  been  a  drama  mightier  than  any 
seen  in  our  theatres,  a  drama  in  which  many 
good  and  beautiful  things  have  reached  a 
proper  climax. 

The  poet  gets  nearer  to  the  heart  of  things 
than  the  rest  of  us,  because  the  poet  is  a  lover. 
We  live  in  a  very  friendly  world,  if  we  our- 
selves are  friendly.  Hate  any  living  thing, 
and  it  will  either  flee  from  us,  or  seek  to  bury 
its  claws  or  fangs  in  our  flesh.  But  if  we  learn 
to  love  any  living  thing  that  possesses  intelli- 
gence, there  seems  to  be  a  chord  of  sympathy 
that  can  respond  to  a  friendly  greeting.  The 
herbs  of  the  field  will  make  flesh  for  artist  and 
artisan,  and  some  of  them  will  heal  the  body 
that  is  diseased.  The  mineral  and  vegetable 
of  malevolence  will  lose  their  evil  qualities,  if 
wooed  long  and  earnestly,  and  reveal  the  real 
goodness  of  their  natures  by  soothing  the  an- 
guished frame,  or  by  driving  dull  care  away. 
What  a  friend  to  man  is  the  opium-poppy,  and 
tobacco;  what  a  friend,  in  certain  states  of 
18 


NATURE 

the  system,  is  arsenic,  or  strychnine.  The  very 
weeds  which  are  trampled  under  foot,  or  up- 
rooted, are  found  by  the  loving  botanist  to 
have  many  charming  qualities  when  their  so- 
ciety is  cultivated.  Perhaps  there  is  nothing 
in  the  world  which  will  not  eventually  speak 
to  us  with  a  noble  tongue,  if  the  ear  will  but 
listen  long  and  patiently. 

In  Nature  one  may  find  his  strength.  The 
strong  individual  is  one  who  has  lived  close  to 
the  heart  of  things.  There  is  a  solidity  in  the 
farmer  who  smacks  of  the  soil  which  is  like 
the  granite  of  the  hills,  a  solidity  that  is  sel- 
dom found  in  those  to  whom  green  fields  and 
running  brooks  are  mysteries.  There  is  a 
whisper  of  serenity  and  peace  in  the  venerable 
woods,  and  in  the  vales  that  wind  among  the 
lonely  hills.  There  is  health  in  the  cool  breath 
of  the  mountain,  and  in  the  strong  breezes  of 
the  sea.  The  boy  who  considers  the  lilies  of 
the  field  will  not  sigh  for  the  purple  robe  of  a 
king.  There  is  a  subtile  music  in  the  rain  and 
in  the  snow  which  steals  upon  one  at  times, 
as' if  some  god  of  the  air  were  murmuring  his 
happiness,  as  perhaps  some  god  is,  or  many 
gods,  it  may  be.  The  red  of  the  morning 
moves  us  to  an  attitude  of  worship,  and  the 
19 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

gold  of  the  eventide  fills  us  with  hallowed 
thoughts.  One  may  feel  his  own  immensity  as 
he  walks  over  the  broad  prairie.  The  clouds 
that  drift  across  the  summer  skies  often  seem 
to  me  like  ships  in  the  atmospheric  ocean,  sail- 
ing away  with  a  cargo  of  my  sweetest  dreams. 
Every  object,  indeed,  is  for  the  poetic  sense  a 
door  opening  into  the  Spiritual  World. 

Although  man  is  more,  and  infinitely  more, 
than  Nature,  the  person  who  forsakes  Nature 
for  the  artificialities  of  a  cheap  society  will 
be  less  than  a  man.  As  one  reads  the  Eng- 
lish poetry  of  the  eighteenth  century,  how  lit- 
tle does  one  find  to  inspire  him.  It  was  an 
age  of  prose  and  of  scepticism,  hardly  a  great 
poetic  light  shining  anywhere.  It  is  small  won- 
der that  the  tender  heart  of  Thomas  Gray 
seemed  so  mournful,  that  Robert  Burns  should 
have  wasted  his  energies,  and  that  Oliver 
Goldsmith  should  have  been  haunted  by  mem- 
ories of  a  Deserted  Village.  These  poets  were 
at  heart  lovers  of  Nature,  and  something  of 
Nature  breathed  through  them,  although  there 
was  no  conception  in  their  day  of  a  Nature 
that  lived  and  breathed.  Nothing  but  mechan- 
ism was  seen  in  the  external  world,  and  a  poor 
superficial  deism  was  the  prevailing  religion. 
20 


NATURE 

It  was  the  cry  of  an  outraged  soul  that  was 
heard  saying,  Back  to  Nature.  Poor,  half- 
mad  Rousseau  saw  the  light  gleaming  but 
faintly,  but  the  wonder  is  that  he  was  able  to 
see  any  light  at  all.  The  reader  of  Pope's 
verse  learns  how  contemptible  in  many  ways 
was  English  society  in  his  time,  a  period  when 
the  "Dunciad"  was  regarded  as  a  great  poem, 
as  if  it  were  possible  that  lines  which  pilloried 
a  few  half-starved  wretches  could  be,  in  their 
essence,  a  poem  at  all. 

There  is  little  in  that  eighteenth  century 
which  is  inspiring,  save  the  revolutionary  spirit 
that  dared  to  break  out  in  the  American  col- 
onies and  in  France  with  bold  declarations  of 
the  rights  of  Man.  And  yet,  when  one  reads 
the  sequel  to  these  declarations,  how  depress- 
ing does  it  seem.  America  has  not  fulfilled  the 
early  promise.  The  red  flames  of  the  French 
Revolution  lit  up  the  night  to  how  little  pur- 
pose !  The  king  and  queen  went  to  the  scaf- 
fold, and  many  a  noble  likewise,  but  despotism 
soon  came  back  to  the  unhappy  land. 

The  miserable  scepticisms  and  artificialities 
of  the  eighteenth  century  were  dissipated  by 
poets  who  went  back  to  Nature  for  their  in- 
spiration, poets  like  Wordsworth  and  Shelley 
21 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

and  Byron  and  Keats.  Wordsworth,  who  had 
been  powerfully  moved  by  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, but  revolted  by  its  excesses,  was  accused 
in  later  years  of  being  a  reactionary,  but  the 
charge  is  false.  In  the  best  sense  of  the  word, 
Wordsworth  was  a  radical  to  the  end  of  his 
days,  for  he  was  a  root-man.  But  he  would 
not  worship  a  courtesan  as  a  divine  being,  and 
he  saw  more  divinity  in  the  great  out-of-doors, 
and  in  the  simple  dalesmen  of  his  land,  than 
in  bloodthirsty  mobs.  Wordsworth's  love  of 
Nature  was  itself  a  radicalism.  And  there  are 
aspects  of  Nature  which  cannot  be  perceived 
without  approaching  her  in  the  worshipful 
spirit  of  this  man,  who  saw  that 

"The  clouds  that  gather  round  the  setting  sun 
Do  take  a  sober  coloring  from  an  eye 
That  hath  kept  watch  o'er  man's  mortality." 

and  who  found,  in  the  union  of  his  soul  with 
the  beauty  of  the  great  world  of  objects  that 
we  call  Nature,  the  inspiration  to  say: 
"Thanks  to  the  human  heart  by  which  we  live, 
Thanks  to  its  tenderness,  its  joys  and  fears, 
To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 

There  is  a  strange  correspondence  between 
the  inner  life  of  man  and  outward  Nature  in 
g* 


NATURE 

her  varying  moods.  There  is  the  same  sweet- 
ness and  crabbedness;  the  same  gentleness  and 
rage;  the  same  generosity  and  niggardliness; 
the  same  light  and  darkness.  In  both  Nature 
and  man  there  is  music;  in  both  there  is  dis- 
sonance. Nature  and  man  develop  pan  passu. 
When  man  becomes  intelligible,  Nature  be- 
comes intelligible.  One  sees  purpose  in  Na- 
ture when  one  sees  purpose  in  man.  It  is  the 
intelligence  of  man,  indeed,  that  lights  up  the 
external  world,  and  makes  the  shadows  to  flee. 
The  harshness  of  Nature  dies  with  the  growth 
of  gentleness  in  man,  and  there  are  times  when 
conviction  obtains  in  me  that  a  perfect  man 
would  be  reflected  in  a  perfect  Nature.  Is 
Nature,  then,  but  a  mask  that  hides  the  real 
face  of  man?  Perhaps  that  would  be  an  un- 
wise thing  to  say.  Nevertheless,  a  good  man 
has  power  to  destroy  the  evils  of  Nature  that 
burden  the  understanding,  a  power  that  the 
bad  type  of  men  do  not  possess.  Moral 
growth  purifies  the  human  intellect,  and  makes 
it  a  conqueror.  The  moral  consciousness  may 
preve,  in  its  ultimate  development,  indeed,  to 
be  a  power  that  will  enable  the  intellect  to 
penetrate  into  nooks  and  corners  of  Nature, 
now  apparently  impenetrable,  and  to  discover 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

thereby  how  to  control  earthquakes  and  vol- 
canic eruptions.  Does  this  sound  mystical? 
Very  likely  it  does,  but  we  live  in  just  this 
mystical  kind  of  a  universe.  The  ethical  per- 
son will  conquer  the  earth,  because  he  is  the 
only  person  who  really  sees  the  earth.  All  who 
have  genuine  power  of  vision,  all  who  discover 
and  invent  and  create,  are,  in  the  last  analy- 
sis, and  in  the  deepest  sense,  moral.  The  sel- 
fish individual  never  perceives  anything  but  the 
sensual  object;  the  moral  individual  discovers 
the  heart  of  the  object,  and  its  law.  I  do  not 
mean  by  this  statement  the  persons  who  are 
conventionally  moral,  for  such  persons  are 
often  the  most  evil  of  our  species;  but  I  do 
mean  the  great  knowledge-lovers  of  the  race. 
The  great  soul  is  one  that  loves  its  work,  its 
tools,  and  the  earth  upon  which  it  toils.  He  is 
a  poet  who  perceives  that  he  is  a  creator,  and 
every  great  discoverer  and  inventor  has  been  a 
poet,  no  matter  how  unconscious  he  may  have 
been,  and  doubtless  was,  of  his  poetic  quality. 

One  learns  his  own  nature  by  looking  out- 
ward. This  is  a  paradox,  and  its  truth  is  often 
denied  to-day.  It  is  said  that  one  must  look 
within  for  his  inspiration  and  his  law;  and,  in 
the  deepest  sense,  that  statement  is  true.  But 
24 


NATURE 

what  is  the  modus  operand!  by  which  a  person 
succeeds  in  looking  within?  One  would  sup- 
pose from  much  of  the  cheap  talk  of  the  hour 
that  all  which  is  necessary  to  make  one  an  in- 
fallible authority,  a  master  of  life  and  morals, 
is  the  retirement  of  oneself  into  oneself,  and 
after  becoming  a  hermit,  an  anchorite,  to  listen 
intently  to  some  voice  that  will  speak  within 
the  soul.  Now  the  voice  of  Truth  does  speak 
within  the  soul,  but  it  does  not  speak  to  one 
who  enters  a  hermitage,  unless  one  has  had  a 
rich  experience.  A  hermit  may  hear  a  voice, 
but  it  is  far  more  likely  to  be  the  voice  of  in- 
sanity than  of  reason.  Those  who  speak  of 
going  into  the  silence  merely  inform  the  world 
that  they  have  periods  when  they  are  afflicted 
with  a  touch  of  lunacy.  We  never  really  look 
within  until  we  look  without.  A  healthy  ob- 
jectivity makes  the  subjective  life  sweet,  and  it 
is  the  only  thing  that  does  or  can.  No  one 
really  sees  himself,  until  he  sees  himself  in 
his  fellows,  and  in  the  mirror  of  the  world. 
Man  is  a  social  being.  His  social-consciousness 
is  the  source  of  all  his  wisdom.  He  must  re- 
flect upon  all  that  he  sees  and  hears  and 
touches,  but,  if  he  sees  and  hears  and 
touches  nothing,  then  he  has  nothing  upon 
25 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

which  to  reflect.  The  quidnuncs  of  the  present 
time  who  speak  of  getting  beyond  sex  and  self 
and  personality,  and  I  know  not  what  else, 
do  not  raise  their  intellectual  stature  by  the 
fractional  part  of  an  inch.  They  simply  mis- 
take absolute  ignorance  for  absolute  knowl- 
edge; nothingness  for  real  being.  When  Jesus 
wished  to  impress  a  truth  upon  his  disciples, 
or  the  persons  who  listened  to  him,  he  did  not 
advise  them  to  go  into  a  silence,  where  nothing 
objective  might  be  seen  or  heard;  no,  he  told 
them  to  consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,  the 
grass,  the  ravens,  the  sparrows,  the  sky,  or  he 
told  them  the  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son  or  the 
Good  Samaritan.  Walt  Whitman,  in  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  of  his  poems,  has  shown 
the  nature  of  a  healthy  objectivity,  by  describ- 
ing a  child  who  went  forth  one  day,  and  found 
himself  identified  with  all  that  he  saw. 

"There  was  a  child  went  forth  one  day; 

And  the  first  object  he  looked  upon,  that  object  he 

became ; 
And  that  object  became  part  of  him  for  the  day,  or 

a  certain  part  of  the  day,  or  for  many  years,  or 

stretching  cycles  of  years. 
The  early  lilacs  became  part  of  this  child, 
And  grass  and  white  and  red  morning  glories,  and 
26 


NATURE 

white  and  red  clover,  and  the  song  of  the  phoebe 
bird, 

And  the  third-month  lambs,  and  the  sow's  pink  faint 
litter,  and  the  mare's  foal  and  the  cow's  calf, 

And  the  noisy  brood  of  the  barnyard,  or  by  the  mire 
of  the  pond  side, 

And  the  fish  suspending  themselves  so  curiously  be- 
low there — and  the  beautiful  and  curious  liquid, 

And  the  water  plants  with  their  graceful  flat  heads 
all  became  part  of  him." 

There  is  nothing  within  the  mind  more  sub- 
jective than  the  objects  of  Nature,  when  one 
has  gone  forth,  like  Whitman's  child,  to  view 
them,  and  they  have  become  part  of  him.  But 
one  must  view  them.  Landscapes  and  the 
poetic  forms  of  Nature  close  at  hand  will  not 
reveal  themselves,  or  their  secrets,  in  the  trance 
of  pure  silence.  They  must  be  seen.  That 
was  a  wise  observation  of  Cowper,  when  he 
noted 

"How  much  the  dunce  who's  sent  abroad  to  roam 
Excels  the  dunce  who  has  been  kept  at  home." 

The  person  who  communes  with  visible  and 
audible  Nature  does  not  need  to  enter  a  clois- 
ter. Wisdom  is  not  born  by  closing  the  eyes, 
but  by  keeping  them  open.  We  never  learn  to 
be  kind  by  shutting  ourselves  up,  and  thinking 
27 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

about  kindness.  We  learn  to  be  kind  by  going 
out  into  the  world  where  we  may  suffer,  and 
thus  learn  how  to  sympathise  with  the  suffer- 
ings of  others.  We  do  not  become  wise  by 
shutting  ourselves  up,  and  thinking  about  wis- 
dom. We  become  wise  through  experience. 
The  Hindu  fakir  is  not  a  wise  man;  he  is  a 
fool.  The  law  of  our  being  is  not  learned, 
and  our  moral  guide  is  not  discovered,  by  the 
incarceration  of  the  body  in  a  self-inflicted 
prison.  A  soldier  on  the  battlefield  will  learn 
more  of  sound  ethic  within  an  hour  than  a 
closet-philosopher  will  learn  in  a  lifetime.  The 
moral  law  is  discovered  only  through  consid- 
eration of  our  relation  to  all  realities.  A 
farmer  sows  his  wheat  that  the  world  may 
have  a  supply  of  bread.  But  let  us  suppose 
that  a  body  of  closet-philosophers  should  ap- 
pear in  the  field  and  trample  down  the  grain, 
quite  in  ignorance  of  the  harm  they  were  do- 
ing. Their  action  would  be,  in  the  truest  sense, 
immoral,  for  the  people  dependent  upon  that 
wheat-field  for  their  bread  would  go  hungry. 
A  closet-philosopher  hugging  his  silence  would 
never  have  learned  that  wheat  was  good  for 
food,  nor  would  he  have  so  much  as  learned 
that  a  man  was  good  for  anything.  The 


NATURE 

Hindu  swamis  who  emigrate  from  their  homes, 
and  captivate  silly  women,  have  not  learned 
the  worth  of  Humanity  in  general,  or  of  the 
individual  in  particular;  for  one  must  indeed 
mingle  with  his  fellows,  and  rub  shoulders 
with  them,  in  order  to  learn  that  they  are  too 
valuable  to  be  absorbed  into  the  nothingness 
of  the  Hindu  Absolute. 

The  meaning  of  man,  like  the  meaning  of  a 
wheat-field,  will  be  found  only  through  experi- 
ence. Years  of  meditation  in  lonely  privacy 
will  not  teach  one  as  much  concerning  a  person 
as  an  hour  of  earnest  conversation  with  him 
will,  or  a  day  spent  in  close  observation. 
There  must  be  perception  before  reflection. 
Knowledge  comes  to  us  largely  through  the 
senses.  It  is  true  that  the  understanding  lies 
back  of  the  senses,  and  that,  without  the  under- 
standing, the  senses  would  be  meaningless;  but 
it  is  no  less  true  that  without  the  senses  the 
understanding  would  be  futile.  It  would  be 
like  a  well  without  water,  or  a  field  without 
soil.  There  are  five  of  these  senses,  and  all  of 
them  need  to  be  cultivated  to  the  utmost.  Yet 
a  man  may  not  employ  one  of  them  vigorously, 
but  some  bigot  will  cry  out,  "Beware !  there  is 
danger  ahead  I"  A  widespread  fear  exists  that 
39 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

one  may  see  or  hear  or  touch  or  taste  or  smell 
too  much.  This  fear  is  born  of  morbid  intro- 
spection, and  may  be  cured  only  by  giving  the 
heart  for  a  time  to  Nature.  Nature  seems  to 
say  to  us :  "Behold,  I  have  given  you  a  world 
to  be  enjoyed.  Do  not  be  afraid  of  it.  If  you 
will  love  it,  you  shall  have  great  love  in  re- 
turn." And  the  real  difference  between  the 
person  who  is  wise  and  the  person  who  is  ig- 
norant is  more  largely  than  is  generally  sup- 
posed a  difference  between  the  man  who  has 
used  his  senses  and  the  man  who  has  not.  The 
word  sensual  has  come  to  have  an  evil  mean- 
ing; nevertheless,  it  is  the  sensual  man,  rather 
than  the  one  who  has  not  used  his  senses,  who 
has  learned  and  lived  the  most.  The  so-called 
spiritual  man  is  usually  very  thin.  The  evil  of 
sensuality,  so  far  as  sensuality  is  evil,  springs 
from  excessive  gratification  of  one  or  two 
senses  at  the  expense  of  the  rest.  Nature  pun- 
ishes excess,  because  excess  is  really  starvation. 
Lack  of  fulness  is  the  penalty  which  one  ex- 
periences for  his  partiality.  It  is  only  through 
acceptance  and  enjoyment  of  the  whole  of 
things  that  one  grows  into  a  condition  of 
virtue. 

It  is  said  sometimes  that  certain  things  are 
30 


NATURE 

unnatural,  but  I  must  confess  that  the  notion 
of  there  being  some  things  which  are  unnat- 
ural means  nothing  to  me.  Whatsoever  a 
person  is  able  to  do  is  natural.  Whether  it 
be  desirable  or  not  is  another  matter.  The 
unnatural  is  simply  that  which  cannot  be  found 
or  imagined  in  Nature;  it  is,  in  other  words, 
the  unthinkable.  It  is  not  unnatural  to  kill, 
or  to  do  other  things  which  may  justly  be 
branded  as  crimes,  but  it  is  undesirable  that 
persons  should  live  who  have  a  mania  for 
crime.  No  matter  what  may  be  thought  of  per- 
sons like  Oscar  WTilde  and  Paul  Verlaine,  let 
us  at  least  avoid  the  error  of  declaiming  against 
them  on  the  ground  that  they  were  unnatural 
characters.  The  nightingale  and  the  screech- 
owl  are  both  members  of  the  great  family  of 
Nature,  and  so  are  Beethoven  and  the  person 
who  does  not  know  one  note  of  music  from 
another.  It  must  be  admitted  that  one  who  is 
lacking  in  some  genuine  good,  whether  that 
good  be  regarded  as  aesthetic  or  as  moral,  is 
larking  thus  much  in  ideality,  but  it  is  possible 
for  us  to  overlook  the  value  of  uniqueness 
in  personality,  and  to  regard  uniqueness, 
merely  because  it  is  uniqueness,  as  criminal, 
which  it  is  not.  Genius  and  philanthropy  are 
31 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

uniques,  but,  unless  these  qualities  be  placed  in 
the  category  of  insanity,  they  must  be  accepted 
as  genuine  goods  of  life;  and  in  the  future, 
when  there  may  not  be  the  same  desire  for 
sameness,  especially  the  sameness  of  medioc- 
rity, that  exists  to-day,  the  widest  differences 
in  personalities  may  be  highly  prized. 

A  love  for  Nature  which  does  not  include 
Man  is  pernicious,  or  may  be.  One  feels  that 
TJioreau  was  somewhat  lacking  in  humanity, 
and  that  John  Burroughs  has  blended  the  hu- 
man and  the  wilder  elements  much  better. 
Still,  the  love  of  Thoreau  for  Nature,  and  his 
scorn  for  most  of  the  human  beings  he  found 
around  him,  were  due  to  a  certain  passionate 
desire  for  sincerity.  The  flora  and  fauna  of 
the  earth  have  not  learned  the  trick  of  unblush- 
ing mendacity  which  has  been  acquired  by 
their  human  superiors.  John  Muir,  living  in 
the  wilderness,  can  place  implicit  dependence 
upon  the  creatures  and  vegetable  life  which 
he  greets.  He  knows  the  nature  of  the  beast, 
and  the  vegetable.  Speaking  personally,  I  am 
not  very  fond  of  wildness,  for  I  prefer  the 
warm  touch  of  the  human,  with  all  its  evil,  to 
a  life  far  removed  from  the  habitations  of 
those  who  are  of  our  blood;  yet  I  must  con- 


NATURE 

fess  that  experience  has  taught  me  that  a  lover 
of  Humanity  is  made,  if  one  can  but  get  the 
best  that  Nature  has  to  give  into  him.  A  cul- 
tured man  who  lives  much  out-of-doors,  under 
the  broad  open  sky,  in  communion  with  the 
woods  and  fields,  and  viewing  the  far-off  hills 
skirting  the  horizon,  will  find  the  breadth  of 
the  sky,  the  strength  of  the  hills  and  all  the 
genial  influences  of  the  woods  and  fields  silent- 
ly stealing  into  his  way  of  thinking.  To  retire 
from  rime  to  time  into  solitude  makes  one 
broader  and  nobler  than  before  the  retirement 
from  society.  Nature  has  not  been  loved 
enough  in  the  past,  and  the  result  has  been  a 
certain  meanness  in  all  of  our  attitudes.  The 
blood  in  our  veins  and  arteries  has  been  but  a 
thin  and  sluggish  current,  our  heart-throbs 
have  been  feeble,  and  our  pulses  have  not  finely 
thrilled,  because  we  have  not  been  moved  by 
the  melody  that  wells  from  the  heart  of  every 
object,  if  sympathetically  viewed.  If  we  will 
but  listen,  we  may  hear  choral  songs  issuing 
from  the  creeping  grass,  and  the  wind-tossed 
flowers;  mighty  symphonies  blown  by  the 
trumpets  of  the  sky,  and  the  antiphonal  of  the 
sea.  The  birds  are  vocal  with  the  happiness 
of  Nature,  and  the  hum  of  the  insects  is  the 
33 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

distilled  essence  of  all  natural  joy.  We  have 
but  to  listen  to  the  vocalization  of  Nature  to 
go  forth  into  the  world  with  a  new  gladness 
in  our  hearts,  that  shall  later  well-up  within 
us  as  a  grander  music  than  any  that  has  been 
blown  by  the  pipes  of  Pan.  But  there  is  more 
of  Truth  and  Goodness  proclaimed  in  the 
hoarse  bass  of  the  frog's  orchestra  in  the  marsh 
than  can  ever  come  from  the  soul  of  a  person 
who  has  hugged  his  squeamishness,  like  a  cloak, 
around  him  so  long  that  he  has  come  to  regard 
Nature  as  a  thing  indecent.  Well  shall  it  be 
for  us,  if  we  listen  long  and  earnestly  to  the 
whispering  of  the  wind  among  the  trees,  and 
find  therein,  as  in  all  the  voices  of  the  day  and 
night  which  issue  from  the  world,  that  seems 
to  be  external  to  ourselves,  the  inspiration  of 
a  larger  song. 
To  find 

"tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks, 
Sermons  in  stones,  and  good  in  everything" 

is  a  part  of  our  life's  mission. 

It  is  largely  through  contact  with  Nature 
that  one  becomes  acquainted  with  oneself.  I 
think  that  we  may  trust  the  man  who  loves 
Nature.  There  is  a  deep  happiness  in  him. 


NATURE 

If  he  enjoys  the  bracing  chill  of  a  Winter's 
day,  one  may  find  in  his  life  some  of  the  same 
bracing  quality.  The  person  who  loves  the 
purity  of  the  snow  is  himself  pure.  The  man 
who  thrills  at  the  sight  of  the  golden  dandelion 
by  the  dusty  wayside,  who  looks  for  the  first 
modest  violet,  and  is  moved  by  tender  thoughts 
when  he  hears  the  leaves  rustling  in  the  autumn 
wind,  is  a  gentleman.  The  man  who  loves  the 
songs  of  the  birds  has  a  song  in  his  own  heart. 
There  may  be  a  world  more  beautiful  than 
this  planet  upon  which  we  live,  somewhere 
within  the  deeps  of  the  eternities,  a  sweeter 
and  a  grander  one.  I  am  satisfied  with  the 
beauty,  the  sweetness  and  grandeur  of  the 
earth.  I  know  how  much  of  pain  and  sorrow 
we  are  called  upon  to  endure,  I  am  well  aware 
that  one  would  not  wish  to  live  alway  in  the 
old  home,  after  so  many  of  the  beloved  of  our 
youth  and  age,  our  parents,  our  friends,  and 
the  romantic  companions  of  the  days  are  gone. 
Yet  if  there  be  for  us  a  life  after  death,  a 
realm  beyond  the  grave,  where  we  may  find 
those  whom  we  have  loved  and  lost  awhile,  I 
am  certain  that  I  should  desire  to  find  it  very 
much  like  the  world  that  I  have  known.  I 
am  not  sure  that  heaven  would  be  heaven  to 
35 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

me  if  I  could  not  hear  still  the  wind  whisper- 
ing in  the  pines,  the  bee  buzzing  in  the  clover, 
and  the  cricket  chirping  in  the  drowsy  days; 
if  there  were  not  nightingales  and  mocking 
birds,  and  the  more  modest  robins,  to  sing  for 
me,  and  somewhere  a  sandy  beach  where  I 
might  hear  the  voice  of  the  ocean,  with  its 
marvellous  thunder,  and  its  no  less  marvellous 
whisper. 

I  love  the  silences  of  Nature — the  stars  that 
make  no  sound  as  they  travel  in  their  mighty 
orbits  above  us,  the  daisies  and  the  buttercups 
that  smile  upon  us  as  we  pass,  the  forests  that 
stand  immovable  in  the  pomp  of  high-noon,  the 
clouds  sailing  across  the  blue,  the  azure-hued 
peaks  of  the  long  distances,  the  full  tide  of  the 
great  river  that  glides  almost  without  a  ripple 
on  its  breast,  the  splendor  of  the  sunset-seas, 
the  magnificent  rising  of  the  dawn.  These  too 
live  in  the  soul  as  an  emotion,  a  kind  of  un- 
written music,  which  genius  has  power  to  mould 
into  ordered  melodies  and  harmonies. 

How  can  one  be  a  disciple  of  Haeckel,  or 
fail  to  be  a  poet,  who  looks  upon  a  field  of 
golden  maize,  or  upon  a  field  of  grain  as  the 
wind  rides  over  it  in  billows?  The  grapes 
purpling  in  the  mellow  air  of  autumn,  the  long 


NATURE 

trailing  vine  of  the  pumpkin  that  has  pushed 
through  a  fence  to  hold  up  its  yellow  blossom, 
are  as  fine  as  anything  which  the  material 
sphere  can  show  to  reveal  the  secrets  of  the 
forces  at  work  behind  evolution. 

Everything  that  is  exists  for  him  who  is  great 
enough  to  envisage  it.  The  life  that  now  is 
reveals  man  as  the  crowning  glory  of  Nature, 
the  goal  of  evolution.  What  lies  ahead  of  us 
belongs  to  the  unknown.  In  the  end  the  earth 
does  but  shelter  our  bones,  not  our  thoughts 
and  aspirations.  As  one  of  our  own  poets  has 
told  us: 

"...  the  hills 

Rock-ribbed  and  ancient  as  the  sun,  the  vales 
Stretching  in  pensive  quietness  between; 
The  venerable  woods;    rivers  that  move 
In  majesty,  and  the  complaining  brooks 
That  make  the  meadows  green;    and,  poured  round 

all, 

Old  ocean's  gray  and  melancholy  waste, — 
Are  but  the  solemn  decorations  all 
Of  the  great  tomb  of  man." 

But  must  we  pause  here?  Death  is  indeed 
the  final  word  of  Nature.  She  that  brings  to 
life  the  thrilling  and  exuberant  vigor  of  the 
senses  lays  us  low  when  the  measure  of  our 
days  is  passed.  But  Nature  herself  is  called 
37 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

in  question  by  philosophy.  To  the  poets  who 
have  loved  her  most,  there  has  come  a  whisper 
that  Nature  is  largely  an  illusion.  Who  loved 
her  more  than  Walt  Whitman?  And  yet  it 
is  the  voice  of  Walt  Whitman  that  says 

"May  be  the  things  I  perceive,  the  animals,  plants, 
men,  hills,  shining  and  flowing  waters, 

The  skies  of  day  and  night,  colors,  densities,  forms, 

Maybe  these  are  (as  doubtless  they  are)  only  ap- 
paritions, 

And  the  real  something  has  yet  to  be  known." 

These  lines  of  Whitman  that  seem  at  first 
blush  so  pessimistic,  because  of  their  agnosti- 
cism, are  really  based  upon  the  sweetest  hope 
and  noblest  dreaming  of  philosophy.  I  said 
that  I  might  be  obliged  to  modify  later  my 
worded  enthusiasm  for  Nature,  and  so  I  will 
say  now,  in  opposition,  apparently,  to  what  I 
have  been  saying,  that  there  is  many  an  ugly 
aspect  to  the  Nature  that  is  known  to  the 
senses  alone.  The  beauty  of  Nature,  when  not 
imaginatively  interpreted,  is  more  than  half 
illusion.  If  there  be  growth,  there  is  also 
decay;  if  there  be  health,  disease  is  always 
stalking  somewhere  in  the  background.  The 
flesh  refuses  to  remain  sound  and  sweet.  Mad- 
ness walks  abroad.  Nature  is  a  society  of  Ish- 


NATURE 

maelites,  and  her  robes  are  bespattered  with  the 
blood  of  innumerable  victims.  Not  an  object 
but  has  its  enemy.  Tears  follow  close  upon  all 
laughter;  sorrow  dogs  joy  at  every  step.  Burns 
speaks  of  "Nature's  social  union,"  but  he  found 
it  only  in  the  tenderness  of  his  own  heart.  Are 
the  microbes  that  kill  the  most  beautiful  vege- 
table and  animal  forms,  and  man  as  well,  bound 
in  an  amicable  union  to  anything  outside  of 
themselves?  The  mosquito  is  our  enemy  in 
a  deeper  sense  than  we  knew  a  few  years  ago, 
and  no  longer  may  we  wax  sentimental,  with 
Sterne's  Uncle  Toby,  over  the  house-fly. 
There  is  not  room  in  the  world  for  us  both. 
When  we  have  learned  that  a  tiny  insect,  long 
supposed  to  be  harmless,  has  power  to  murder, 
no  matter  how  unwittingly  it  may  be  done,  an 
Aristotle  or  a  Shakespeare  one  may  be  led  to 
query  whether  Nature  be  not  an  enemy  rather 
than  a  friend  to  mankind. 

If  physical  Nature  were  indeed  a  thing-in- 
itself,  there  would  be  no  ground  for  our  high 
human  hopes  and  aspirations.  It  is  only 
through  the  perception  that  Nature  is  but  an 
apparition,  half  revealing  and  half  concealing 
the  spiritual  reality  of  the  soul,  that  we  are 
able  to  enjoy  her  in  any  hearty  and  intelligent 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

fashion.  To  love  Nature  truly  one  must  rise 
above  her.  No  child  ever  loved  another  child 
as  the  father,  the  mother  and  the  poet  have 
loved  children.  When  Jean  Paul  Richter  said 
Ich  Hebe  Gott  und  kleine  Kinder,  he  voiced 
the  same  feeling  that  the  philosopher  must 
have  toward  Nature.  The  child  is  lovable,  not 
merely  because  it  is  a  child,  but  chiefly  because 
within  its  weakness  and  innocence,  and  out  of 
them,  the  glory  and  strength  of  manhood  or 
womanhood  are  growing  like  the  dawn  of  a 
perfect  Summer's  day.  "I  love  God  and  little 
children!"  Yes,  O  German  poet  and  sage,  so 
does  all  that  is  divine  within  all  of  us.  We 
love  the  Perfect  for  itself,  and  the  Imperfect, 
because  the  Perfect  has  incarnated  itself  within 
it,  and  may  nowhere  else  be  found;  but  in  its 
strength  and  majesty  the  Perfection  that  dwells 
only  within  Imperfection  does  raise  the  weakest 
thing  from  the  dust  toward  those  immeasura- 
ble Heavens  of  Being,  which  are  the  fountain- 
light  of  all  our  day.  Regarded  as  a  process, 
Nature  has  power  to  teach,  soothe  and  sustain; 
regarded  as  a  hard  and  fast  reality,  she  mocks, 
irritates  and  maims  the  human  spirit.  Words- 
worth did  not  find  his  light  in  Nature;  he 
illumined  Nature  with  a  light  which  he  had 
40 


NATURE 

found  elsewhere,  a  light  that  never  was  on  sea 
or  land. 

How  happy  seems  the  mad  sensualist,  lover 
of  forms,  who  dwells  in  temples  made  with 
hands,  and  worships  the  temple  rather  than  the 
Reality  for  which  it  stands !  But  his  career  is 
usually  cut  short,  and  in  the  evening  of  his 
life,  Nature  is  found  to  have  left  her  curse, 
rather  than  her  blessing,  upon  him.  One  must 
live  in  a  transfigured  world  to  enjoy  for  long 
even  the  world  of  the  senses.  For  the  philos- 
opher, too,  there  are  always  perplexing  prob- 
lems, which  often  tend  to  rob  him  of  half  his 
natural  happiness,  and  seem  to  leave  him  in 
the  end  no  better  off  than  the  mad  sensualist 
himself.  For  the  philosopher  sees  how  lack- 
ing in  rationality  the  old  earth  is  in  many  of 
her  aspects,  how  pitiless,  indeed,  is  Nature. 
He  will  admire,  but  he  will  also  shudder,  at 
the  vision  of  the 

"Tiger,  tiger,  burning  bright 
In  the  forests  of  the  night," 

unless  he  finds  the  actuality  dissolved  in  the 
roseate  glow  of  its  higher  Reality.  Civilized 
man  has  emerged  from  the  savage.  Shall  not 
the  tiger,  too,  emerge  from  his  bloody  desires, 
41 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

and  develop  an  ethical  consciousness;  is  not 
his  animal  nature  a  milestone  in  the  infinite 
evolution  of  a  real  self?  The  philosopher 
must  ask  the  question.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  that  Darwinism  may  not  be  radical 
enough,  that  in  truth  all  the  lower  forms  of 
life,  animal  and  vegetable  alike,  may  be  real 
selves  which  shall  yet  reach  phenomenal  ex- 
pression in  the  stature  of  man.  Perhaps  the 
sympathy  felt  by  many  a  tender,  poetic  soul 
for  the  forms  on  the  nether  rungs  of  the  ladder 
of  existence  comes  from  a  subtile  intuition  of 
experiences  through  which  all  of  us  have 


If  we  look  too  closely  at  the  physical  world, 
or  study  its  history  too  diligently,  we  shall,  un- 
less possessed  of  an  ineluctable  faith,  find  much 
which  will  disturb  the  serenity  of  our  minds. 
Is  aught  immortal?  The  earth  is  strewn  with 
wrecks;  the  geological  record  is  crowded  with 
tales  of  disaster.  The  ichtyosaurus,  the 
plesiosaurus,  the  pterodactyl,  the  mastodon, 
how  real  these  must  have  seemed  in  their  day 
of  glory,  how  terrible  to  their  enemies  upon 
whom  they  preyed,  and  whom  they  dislodged 
in  the  struggle  for  existence !  Yet  to-day  they 
are  gone ;  the  places  that  knew  them  know  them 


NATURE 

no  more;  a  thousand  types  are  gone.  So  far 
as  we  can  see,  death  was  really  death  to  these 
monsters  of  an  older  time.  And  yet  one  can 
but  feel  that  they,  too,  were  strugglers  after 
a  higher  life  than  any  which  they  achieved. 
They  were  greater  than  their  ancestors,  and, 
monsters  though  they  were,  may  they  not  have 
essayed  higher  flights  than  it  was  possible  for 
them  to  accomplish?  And  shall  we  be  forced 
to  confess  of  those  ancestors  of  man,  who 
helped  to  bring  him  along,  step  by  step,  on  the 
upward-path  of  evolution,  that  they  perished 
miserably,  with  no  hope  of  resurrection?  Did 
Tennyson  dream  a  vain  dream,  when  he  dared 
to  trust 

"That  not  a  worm  is  cloven  in  vain, 
That  not  a  moth  with  vain  desire 
Is  shrivelled  in  a  fruitless  fire, 
Or  but  subserves  another's  gain?" 

We  do  not  know.  We  must  confess  ourselves 
agnostics.  But  does  not  our  sense  of  justice 
demand  for  the  animal  something  of  that 
which  we  ourselves  desire?  It  may  be  said 
that  animal  immortality  is  not  required  for  the 
conservation  of  values,  and  this  may  be  so; 
but  the  thought  will  not  down  in  my  mind  that 
every  form  of  animal,  and  even  of  vegetable, 
43 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

life  may  represent,  in  Reality,  some  ideal  as- 
piration which  is  deserving  of  the  reward  of 
infinitude.  Perhaps  in  an  ideally-real  sense, 
Burns  was  right  when  he  spoke  of  a  social 
union  in  Nature,  that  included  the  field-mouse, 
and,  let  us  add,  the  mountain-daisy,  for  his 
love  for  these  inspired  two  of  his  most  beauti- 
ful poems.  I  am  indeed  convinced  that  if  there 
be  any  real  values  in  the  infra-human  lives, 
they  will  be  conserved,  and,  as  I  remarked 
above,  I  cannot  help  believing  that  there  are. 
These  enmities  on  the  physical  plane,  form  con- 
tending with  form,  and  even  with  man,  may 
serve  some  purpose  in  the  divine  economy, 
of  which  the  individual,  in  his  present  state  of 
development,  has  no  knowledge,  and  of  which 
he  can  form  little  or  no  conception. 

I  will  pause  no  longer  among  these  possi- 
bilities. In  considering  the  case  of  man,  we 
stand  on  firmer  ground.  There  is  little  even 
here  which  we  can  prove  by  the  aid  of  logic, 
but  Humanity  is  an  affirmation,  not  a  negation. 
Every  individual  is  an  affirmation.  Nature  may 
be  an  apparition  and  nothing  more,  but  man 
is  not  an  apparition.  Man  is  a  creator,  a  first 
cause.  The  world  is  his  organized  intelligence, 
and  his  dreams  point  to  worlds  unrealized,  but 
44 


NATURE 

yet  to  be  realized.  There  could  be  no  vision 
without  one  to  see,  and  unless  there  were  per- 
manent realities  there  could  be  no  transient 
appearances.  If  Nature  be  but  an  apparition, 
it  is  an  apparition  of  man.  Nature  is  a  partial 
photograph  of  the  human  soul.  It  is  not  the 
full  apparition  of  the  soul,  but  it  is  what  we 
see  in  our  present  state  of  development.  The 
universe  is  incarnated  in  the  mind;  innumera- 
ble universes  may  there  be  incarnated,  each 
awaiting  the  hour  when  it  shall  unroll  like  die 
panorama  of  this  earthly  scene.  The  life- 
blood  of  Nature  flows  in  our  veins  and 
arteries;  her  fairness  is  our  fairness;  her  ugli- 
ness, too,  if  there  be  ugliness.  What  is  there 
to  fear?  Even  our  doubts  are  self-raised;  they 
do  not  rise  in  anything  external  to  ourselves. 
And  what  is  a  doubt  but  an  inverted  dream  of 
hope  and  trust,  the  fair  world  of  the  mind 
turned  topsy-turvey  hi  the  humor  of  a  grim, 
yet  playful,  scepticism?  All  that  is  noblest  in 
us  despises  a  coward,  and  the  negations  of 
Materialism  are  the  intellectual  cowardice  of 
Humanity,  which  we  must  learn  to  despise  more 
than  the  tremblings  of  the  physical  coward. 
The  brave  man  affirms.  He  believes  in  him- 
self— in  his  ideas,  in  his  dreams.  He  looks 
45 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

up  and  not  down,  forward  and  not  back.  Hav- 
ing seen  the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or 
land,  he  never  doubts  its  reality,  but  is  guided 
by  its  rays  in  all  his  experience.  He  has  in- 
finite faith  in  himself,  infinite  faith  in  Humanity. 
With  this  faith  burning  brightly  in  his  heart, 
he  travels  on  the  endless  road  of  existence, 
confident  that  there  is  no  spectre  which  shall 
not  be  laid,  no  dragon  which  shall  not  be  slain, 
no  wall  which  shall  not  be  levelled,  no  moun- 
tain which  shall  not  be  climbed,  no  sea  which 
shall  not  be  crossed.  Noble  harmonies  well 
up  in  his  soul,  Poetry  finds  him,  and  all  things 
are  in  his  keeping.  And,  in  spite  of  hostile 
appearances,  and  the  discoveries  of  science,  he 
finds  in  his  philosophy  a  transfigured  world, 
whose  atoms  are  the  forms  of  the  world  that 
we  have  always  known.  He  who  knows  this 
transfigured  world  will  find  in  George  Herbert 
a  prophet,  and  accept  his  vision  of  these  ma- 
terial forms. 

"Nothing  hath  got  so  far, 

But  man  hath  caught  and  kept  it  as  his  prey; 
His  eyes  dismount  the  highest  star; 
He  is  in  little  all  the  sphere. 
Herbs  gladly  cure  our  flesh,  because  that  they 
Find  their  acquaintance  there. 
46 


NATURE 

For  us  the  winds  do  blow, 

The    earth   doth   rest,   heaven   move,   and   fountains 

flow; 

Nothing  we  see  but  means  our  good, 
As  our  delight  or  as  our  treasure; 
The  whole  is  either  our  cupboard  of  food, 
Or  cabinet  of  pleasure. 

The  stars  have  us  to  bed; 

Night  draws  the  curtain,  which  the  sun  withdraws., 

Music  and  light  attend  our  head; 

All  things  unto  our  flesh  are  kind, 

In  their  descent  and  being:    to  our  mind 

In  their  ascent  and  cause. 

More  servants  wait  on  man 

Than  he'll  take  notice  of.     In  every  path 

He  treads  down  that  which  doth  befriend  him, 

When  sickness  makes  him  pale  and  wan. 

O  mighty  love !     Man  is  one  world,  and  hath 

Another  to  attend  him." 


SOCIETY    AND    SOLITUDE 

TV/TAN  acts  in  Society;  he  thinks  and  dreams 
•*-*•*'  in  Solitude.  It  is  not  well  for  a  man  to 
be  alone  too  much;  the  gregarious  instinct  is  a 
very  healthy  one,  yet  the  health  of  the  indi- 
vidual demands  that  he  shall  retire  from  time 
to  time  into  the  solitudes,  where  he  may  hold 
communion  with  his  own  self, 

"Far  from  the  madding  crowd's  ignoble  strife." 

There  can  be  an  excessive  activity  of  the 
social  instinct,  healthy  as  in  the  main  that  is, 
and  in  most  men  there  is  an  excessive  activity. 
To  be  alone  with  their  thoughts  and  feelings 
is  painful  to  them,  and  so  they  hasten  to  find 
their  place  in  the  crowd  again.  Indeed  the 
citizen  does  not  love  the  solitary  man  over- 
much. He  notes  the  "lean  and  hungry  look" 
of  the  solitaries,  and  finds  them  infected  with 
revolutionary  thoughts  and  anti-social  notions. 
To  go  away  from  the  city  to  the  country,  or 
to  the  seashore  or  mountains,  is  well  enough  in 
48 


SOCIETY  AND   SOLITUDE 

the  sultry  days  of  summer,  but  to  retire  into 
one's  self,  and  to  live  there,  does  not  impress 
the  average  citizen  favorably.  The  solitary, 
it  may  frankly  be  admitted,  is  a  rather  danger- 
ous person,  who  is  likely  at  any  time  to  come 
out  of  his  retreat  for  no  other  purpose  than 
to  unsettle  human  values. 

It  is  natural  that  the  conservative  should 
frown  upon  him,  for  Society  in  the  mass  is 
always  organized  stupidity.  At  bottom  it  is 
a  mobocracy.  Ideas  find  the  gregarious  soil 
shallow  and  barren  for  their  seeds.  But  the  con- 
servative is  always  at  home  in  the  crowd;  he 
is  no  alien  to  Society,  but  to  the  "manor  born." 
And  there  is  much  to  justify  the  conservative. 
Society  is  the  home  of  the  graces  and  refine- 
ments, of  love  and  friendship.  Whatsoever 
is  most  human  in  us — our  interests  and  inti- 
macies and  enjoyments — everything,  indeed, 
that  apparently  makes  life  worth  living  seems 
to  pass  from  us  when  we  leave  the  habitation 
and  the  street.  Moreover,  Society  is  the  goal 
of  ambition,  of  achievement,  of  all  things  which 
human  beings  are  able  to  accomplish.  We 
should  not  be  surprised  then  if  Society  should 
prove  to  be  a  jealous  mistress,  for  she  is  quite 
right  in  holding  that  all  the  issues  of  life  and 
49 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

death  are  fought  for  her,  and  that  without  the 
assembling  of  men  together,  there  is  nothing 
ultimately  true  or  good  or  beautiful;  that  the 
individual  by  himself  is  meaningless.  The 
Greeks  called  the  private  man  an  idiot,  and 
revealed  their  usual  discernment  by  so  doing, 
for  the  man  who  holds  aloof  from  his  kind 
for  no  better  reason  than  his  dislike  for  them 
is  a  worthless  specimen  of  his  genus. 

Nevertheless,  Solitude  has  claims  that  may 
not  be  put  aside.  Whatsoever  is  good  in  So- 
ciety, whatsoever  is  true  and  beautiful,  has 
come  out  of  Solitude.  All  great  thoughts,  all 
noble  ideals,  have  been  born  in  Solitude.  The 
tall  spirits  of  the  race  have  not  been  the  most 
gregarious;  they  have  not  been  what  the  man 
in  the  street  calls  "good  mixers."  They  have 
not  in  reality  been  unfriendly;  on  the  contrary, 
they  have  usually  been  more  friendly  than  the 
persons  whose  faces  always  glowed  with 
smiles,  when  they  passed  their  neighbors  on 
the  thoroughfares,  or  met  them  in  the  drawing- 
room.  But  their  friendliness  has  taken  another 
form,  a  form  which  later  has  been  seen  for 
what  it  was,  and  their  thoughts  are  now  spoken 
by  every  tongue,  and  their  stride  marks  the 
time  of  every  footstep. 
50 


SOCIETY   AND   SOLITUDE 

Society  is  the  high-water  mark  of  realized 
fact;  Solitude  is  the  ideal  which  would  realize 
a  larger  vision.  Masses  of  men  are  always 
satisfied  with  themselves;  the  children  of  lonely 
thought  are  never  satisfied,  for  they  are  only 
too  well  aware  that  there  are  heights  of  life 
which  they  have  not  ascended,  depths  which 
they  have  not  explored.  They  perceive  the 
possibility  of  an  experience  beyond  experience, 
a  beauty  sweeter,  a  truth  higher,  a  goodness 
nobler  than  any  of  current  report.  They  dis- 
cover that,  no  matter  how  artistic  Society's 
tailor  may  be,  the  coat  that  he  makes  is  soon 
threadbare.  The  genius  is  always  somewhat 
cavalier  in  his  dealings  with  the  popular  idols, 
and  it  may  be  that  he  not  infrequently  loses 
sight  of  the  metal  in  present  fact,  because  of 
the  tarnish  there,  yet  he  is  never  quite  oblivious 
of  the  metal.  But  his  optimism  towards  the 
future  carries  him  away  from  the  cities  and 
farms  of  the  present  to  the  mountains  of  the 
prophetic  spirit,  from  whose  summits  he  may 
survey  the  gleamings  of  a  Golden  Age  and  the 
City  of  God. 

The  genius  of  Solitude  is  the  true  eye  of 
Society.  Ordinarily,  men  are  blinded  by  the 
dust  and  heat  of  partisan  and  sectarian  strife, 
51 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

and  even  more  by  commercial  interests.  The 
pressing  care  of  the  moment — the  hewing  of 
wood  and  the  drawing  of  water — seems  to  be 
the  only  thing  worth  while  to  the  majority. 
Society  has  decreed  the  law,  and  the  masses 
have  no  other  will  than  to  obey.  No  higher 
will  is  known.  Society  has  its  conventional  law, 
its  conventional  morality,  its  conventional  re- 
ligion, and  its  conventional  way  of  doing  busi- 
ness. These  things  are  taken  for  granted. 
They  are  not  reasoned  upon  by  the  average 
person.  Most  people  are  sticklers  for  prece- 
dent, and  believe  that  to  obey  is  the  highest 
virtue.  History  is  regarded  by  them  as  a  truer 
teacher  than  the  prophet. 

Society  is  always  outwardly  respectable  and 
decorous.  Within  the  mansions,  life  is  gay. 
Men  are  well-tailored;  women  are  richly 
gowned.  The  spoken  words  are  softly  uttered. 
The  parson  prays  for  the  welfare  of  his  flock, 
and  drones  out  platitudes  in  his  sermon.  The 
merchant  and  the  manufacturer  are  content  as 
long  as  profits  are  secure.  The  wealthy  man 
is  honored,  and  usually  worshipped.  Surely  it 
would  appear  that  all  things  in  Society  are 
well-ordered;  are  at  one,  indeed,  with  the 
divine  will. 

52 


SOCIETY  AND   SOLITUDE 

But  our  lonely  poets  and  prophets  and  phil- 
osophers are  not  satisfied.  They  profess  to 
see  evils  in  Society  that  are  commonly  over- 
looked; to  see,  in  fact,  what  it  is  not  fashionable 
to  see,  nor  respectable.  They  see  the  gay 
mansions,  but  they  see  the  hovels  too;  the  rich 
garments,  but  the  rags  of  the  poor  no  less; 
the  soft  words  they  hear,  but  they  also  hear  the 
curse.  These  men  are  not  satisfied  with  the 
success  of  the  manufacturer  and  the  merchant, 
while  a  world  of  misery  lies  all  around  them, 
the  world  of  the  poor  who  go  scantily  clad,  and 
often  hungry  and  without  a  sheltering  roof. 
They  are  certain  that  Success  must  be  a  very 
unlovable  god,  he  is  so  partial,  and  the  prayer 
and  sermon  that  do  not  proclaim  a  real  brother- 
hood of  man,  and  a  universal  fatherhood  of  the 
divine,  jar  upon  their  ears.  The  poet  finds 
himself  stifled  in  this  atmosphere  of  commer- 
cialism which  has  never  absorbed  the  fragrance 
of  the  flowery  meads,  and  knows  nothing  of 
majestic  rivers  and  sky-piercing  mountains. 
The  great  deeps  of  Solitude  have  nourished 
lovelier  ideals  than  the  conventional  ones  of 
prosperous  financial  and  industrial  magnates, 
and  between  these  ideals  of  Society  and  Soli- 
tude there  is  a  very  wide  gulf.  The  artists 
53 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

and  the  philosophers  despise  the  men  of  busi- 
ness, and  the  men  of  business  in  turn  despise 
the  philosophers  and  the  artists. 

It  is  very  unfortunate,  this  feud  between  the 
realists  of  Society  and  the  idealists  of  Solitude, 
but  there  can  be  no  question  which  party  will 
be  obliged  to  yield  in  the  end.  All  the  charm 
that  our  Society  of  to-day  possesses  it  owes  to 
the  idealists  of  the  past.  There  is  no  citizen 
of  the  present  who  would  reverence  the  society 
of  his  remote  ancestors.  Let  him  despise  the 
poet  and  the  prophet  as  much  as  he  will,  he 
has  yet  entered  with  joy  into  the  inheritance 
that  was  won  for  him  by  a  poet's  song,  and 
a  prophet's  iron  tone.  The  mansion,  the  genial 
conversation,  the  graces  and  amenities  of  life, 
the  church  are  all  debts  which  he  owes  to  a 
spirit  whose  latter-day  incarnations  he  affects 
to  scorn  and  treat  with  utmost  disdain.  There 
is  scarcely  a  comfort  which  he  enjoys  .that 
would  have  been  attained  but  for  the  masterful 
purpose  of  art. 

Emerson  has  said  that  "Solitude  is  imprac- 
ticable and  Society  fatal."  Without  the  ideals 
which  the  lonely  spirits  of  Solitude  bring  to 
our  doors,  Society  would  indeed  be  fatal.  The 
hope  of  Society  lies  in  the  men  of  reflection 
54 


SOCIETY  AND   SOLITUDE 

and  vision,   into  whom  the  Life   of  Ages   is 
"richly  poured,"  the  "Life  which  we  find 

"Breathing  in  the  thinker's  creed, 
Pulsing  in  the  hero's  blood, 
Nerving  simplest  thought  and  deed, 
Freshening  time  with  truth  and  good. 

Consecrating  art  and  song, 
Holy  book  and  pilgrim  track, 
Hurling  floods  of  tyrant  wrong 
•    From  the  sacred  limits  back." 

It  is  this  Life  of  Ages  to  which  all  righteous 
appeal  is  made.  If  we  can  square  with  that, 
the  foundation  of  our  purpose  is  a  rock;  if 
we  cannot,  it  is  nothing  but  flimsy  and  treacher- 
ous sand.  Society  is  indeed  a  precious  thing, 
and  its  reality  must  be  preserved,  even  if  its 
forms  must  be  destroyed  again  and  again. 
There  is  a  society  not  yet  recognized  by  that 
which  calls  itself  Society,  an  association  of  the 
poor  and  lowly  of  the  earth,  who  are  regarded 
as  fortunate  if  they  secure  the  crumbs  which 
fall  from  rich  men's  tables;  an  association  of 
individuals  organized  only  by  the  bond  of  the 
spirit,  who,  for  the  most  part,  know  nothing 
of  the  graces  and  amenities  of  life ;  the  unkempt 
and  unlettered  children  of  the  field  and  work- 
55 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

shop,  whose  joys  are  few  and  cares  many. 
These,  too,  must  emigrate  from  the  hovel  to 
the  mansion;  they  must  cease  their  dreary  stam- 
mering, and  learn  to  speak  with  articulate 
voice;  they  must  find  room  in  the  church  to 
worship ;  they  must  receive  their  equitable  share 
in  the  profits  of  Society,  which  now  fall  mainly 
to  the  manufacturer,  the  merchant  and  the 
financier. 

Society  is  a  will-o'-the-wisp  until  it  is  founded 
on  human  brotherhood;  until  every  man  knows 
that  he  is  a  brother  to  every  other  man.  The 
joy  of  life  must  become  a  universal  joy,  not 
one  to  which  only  a  few  are  invited,  while  the 
many  remain  alien  and  outcast.  No  man  should 
be  an  alien  and  outcast.  Not  until  Humanity 
becomes  the  cornerstone  of  Society  shall  an  in- 
dividual stand  firmly  planted  on  his  feet,  and 
with  eyes  that  may  gaze  unflinchingly  into  the 
future.  We  may  bind  the  limbs  of  men  to-day 
with  iron,  we  may  gag  their  organs  of  speech, 
we  may  crush  the  very  life  whose  blood  flows 
within  vein  and  artery,  but  these  bound  limbs 
shall  yet  smite,  these  tongues  shall  yet  speak, 
these  lives  shall  yet  be  free.  If  Society  denies 
justice,  the  red  banner  of  revolution  shall  be 
unfurled  in  the  air.  He  is  a  very  ignorant  man 
56 


SOCIETY  AND  SOLITUDE 

who  fancies  that  coercion  settles  anything.  The 
life  that  is  Ac  peasant  in  time  learns  to  smile 
at  the  life  that  is  the  king.  It  learns  to  smile 
and  crush  its  oppressor.  Things  are  never  set- 
tled until  they  are  settled  right.  Let  the  con- 
servative pile  up  his  obstacles  on  the  pathway 
that  leads  to  progress;  let  him  pile  them  up 
until  they  have  become  mountain-high ;  let  him 
scream  in  anger  until  he  grows  purple  with 
apoplexy;  the  rising  tide  of  human  aspiration 
is  of  a  river  that  shall  roll  aside  every  obstacle, 
and  every  man  who  denies  the  law  of  justice 
and  generosity. 

For  there  is  an  Infinite  in  every  man  which 
speaks  from  the  deeps  of  his  Solitude,  and  is 
sooner  or  later  heard  by  all.  This  Infinite  in 
man's  larger  self.  We  may  convince  another 
by  argument  that  our  wrong  is  right,  but  one 
cannot  convince  oneself,  and  in  this  truth  the 
weakness  of  Society's  conservatism  is  found. 
In  the  din  and  bustle  of  Society,  the  familiar 
tones  are  heard  to  the  exclusion  of  the  sky- 
born  melodies  that  are  heard  in  Solitude,  and 
which  are  later  interpreted  as  the  accents  of  di- 
vine love,  but,  although  in  the  noisome  clamor 
only  the  jarring  notes  of  greed  and  private 
warfare  are  heard,  there  are  hours  when  even 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

Society  may  be  said  to  go  into  Solitude,  hours 
when  the  divinely  human  energies  within  us 
work  miracles.  The  Infinite  has  spoken,  and 
Society  has  listened  and  heard.  Society  then 
leaps  out  of  its  evil  into  its  good.  In  those 
golden  moments  there 

"gleams  upon  our  sight, 
Thro'  present  wrong  the  Eternal  Right." 

Solitude  is  not,  like  Society,  a  good  in  itself. 
We  retire  into  ourselves  only  that  we  may 
emerge  again,  and  appear  in  Society  with  a 
quickening  thought.  Apart  from  Society,  there 
is  in  Solitude  no  meaning.  Although  we  see 
clearest  and  think  our  greatest  thoughts  in 
Solitude,  our  thoughts  would  be  meaningless, 
and  our  vision  vain,  if  we  did  not  direct  the 
energies  of  our  nature,  inspired  by  thought 
and  vision,  to  the  upbuilding  of  a  noble  Society. 
Nay,  were  it  not  for  Society,  there  could  be 
no  human  seeing  and  thinking.  A  person  takes 
his  city  with  him  when  he  retires  into  his  own 
privacy.  The  use  of  Solitude  is  not  that  men 
may  get  away  from  men,  but  that  men  may 
learn  how  to  get  to  men.  Solitude  is  valuable 
because  it  enables  the  individual  to  work  out 
the  problems  of  Society;  because  it  teaches  him 
58 


SOCIETY  AND  SOLITUDE 

how  he  may  become  a  worthy  citizen.  He  is  a 
false  teacher  who  proclaims  that  Solitude  is 
a  good  in  itself.  A  man  is  not  by  nature  a 
monk;  a  woman  is  not  by  nature  a  nun.  One 
does  not  need  to  spend  his  days  and  nights  in 
a  lonely  cell,  nor  in  the  sandy  desert,  nor 
among  the  lonely  hills.  Cloistered  virtue  is  not 
the  sweetest.  For  very  few  men  or  women 
is  the  life  of  a  recluse  good,  and  rarely  is  it 
beautiful.  He  who  retires  from  Society  be- 
cause he  hates  Man  is  worse  than  the  meanest 
individual  who,  content  with  his  lot,  abides  in 
Society.  Life  is  sweet;  life  is  good;  life  is 
beautiful.  Only  in  and  through  Humanity  may 
one  live  truly.  To  divorce  oneself  from  So- 
ciety is  to  make  oneself  incomplete.  There  is 
no  good  without  brotherhood.  The  vision  of 
a  virtuous  Solitude  is  the  apotheosis  of  an 
ideal  Society.  It  is  an  outlook  upon  Society 
without  blur  or  stain;  upon  a  fraternity  living 
and  working  together  for  the  common  good. 
And  to  receive  the  full  benefit  of  Solitude,  to 
secure  the  vision,  it  is  not  necessary  to  leave 
the  crowded  street.  One  has  only  to  live  in 
noble,  masterful  thought.  Only  in  such  Soli- 
tude may  a  self  hear  the  low,  sweet  prelude  to 
the  Society  of  the  future. 


THE   SPIRIT  OP   LIFE 

It  is  often  said  that  all  great  souls  have  been 
born  lonely,  and  loneliness,  it  must  be  admitted, 
has  been  a  characteristic  of  all  the  tall  spirits 
of  the  race.  It  is  a  sad  truth.  Many  have 
been  well-nigh  friendless;  some  completely  so. 
Some  whose  lonely  burden  seemed  to  them  at 
times  greater  than  they  could  bear  have  cried 
in  anguish  of  heart  for  the  companionship  that 
was  denied  to  them.  And  the  pity  of  it  all  is 
that  the  persons  who  have  been  denied  com- 
panionship, because  of  their  finer  sensibilities 
and  nobler  ways  of  thinking,  were  just  the  per- 
sons who  would  have  been  the  truest  friends. 
Think  of  Jesus  in  Gethsemane  sweating  great 
drops  of  blood  in  his  agony,  lonely,  alone  with 
his  dream  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  and  in 
his  consciousness  perceiving  the  spike-piercing 
cross  just  ahead  of  him !  Think  of  Gautama, 
a  prince  by  birth,  leaving  his  palace,  to  become 
a  beggar,  that  he  might  discover  the  law  which 
should  cure  the  sorrow  of  the  world!  Think 
of  Spinoza,  with  the  curse  of  his  own  people 
upon  him,  because  he  dared  to  be  loyal  to 
the  truth  as  he  saw  it!  Think  of  the  men  of 
genius  in  all  ages,  whose  dreams  of  truth,  of 
goodness,  of  beauty,  caused  doors  to  darken 
at  their  approach,  and,  in  some  instances,  led 
60 


SOCIETY  AND  SOLITUDE 

them  beyond  all  sheltering  roofs,  to  find  peace 
only  in  the  grave ! 

Nevertheless,  these  individuals  have  not  been 
quite  friendless,  even  in  their  darkest  hours; 
they  have  not  been  quite  alone.  In  their 
dreams  they  saw  fair  men  and  fair  women; 
fairer,  indeed,  than  any  that  the  earth  knew; 
fairer,  I  fear,  than  any  that  the  earth  will 
see  for  a  long  time.  But  the  poet  sees  in  every 
man  and  woman  something  fairer  than  what  is 
seen  by  the  common  eye.  Even  the  best  are 
belter  when  a  poet  sees  them.  There  is  a 
London,  a  Paris,  a  New  York,  that  have  no 
••WIMM  »  outside  of  the  idealist's  dream,  which 
yet  is  more  real  than  the  actuality,  because  it 
will  be  the  acknowledged  reality  of  the  future, 
long  after  the  present  has  faded,  to  use  Pro- 
fessor TyndalTs  famous  simile,  "like  a  streak 
of  morning  cloud  into  the  infinite  azure  of  the 
past."  "In  the  world,"  said  de  Senancour,  "a 
man  lives  in  his  own  age,  in  Solitude  in  all  the 
ages."  Some  compensation  the  men  cut  off 
from  their  fellows  have  had,  although  it  is 
far  from  being  a  full,  or  adequate,  compensa- 
tion. These  men  have  been  destitute  of  that 
which  sweetens  the  cup  of  life,  and  makes  the 
bitterest  drops  less  bitter.  And  it  is  quite 
61 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

possible  that  a  prophet,  if  rejected  too  long, 
will  grow  sour  and  waste  his  energies  in  a 
fruitless  Solitude.  Emerson,  who  is  often  so 
wise,  has  said  truly  that  "It  is  easy  in  the 
world  to  live  after  the  world's  opinion;  it  is 
easy  in  Solitude  to  live  after  our  own,  but  the 
great  man  is  he  who  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd 
keeps  with  perfect  sweetness  the  independence 
of  Solitude."  Yes,  after  all  is  said,  one  must 
find  his  Society  in  these  creatures  of  flesh  and 
blood.  Even  if  the  men  and  women  of  the 
dream-world  be  fairer,  yet  it  is  a  dream-world 
still,  and,  until  it  is  realized,  it  can  never  be 
the  soul-satisfying  thing  that  a  genuine  friend- 
ship is. 

Great  is  the  man  who,  knowing  the  value  of 
friendship,  dares  to  be  himself  in  every  crisis, 
at  whatever  hazard.  The  masses  will  not  think 
beyond  the  pressure  of  the  hour's  problem,  but 
the  genius  is  he  who  perceives  the  problems  of 
the  generations  to  come.  There  is  no  perma- 
nence in  the  realm  of  thought.  The  thoughts 
that  appear  to-day  to  be  the  most  secure,  the 
thoughts  of  religion,  of  morality,  of  govern- 
ment and  education,  shall  eventually  pass  away 
like  mist  before  the  sun,  or  submit  to  modifica- 
tions that  will  be  almost  equally  destructive. 


SOCIETY   AND   SOLITUDE 

There  is  nothing  permanent,  nothing  stable, 
save  the  human  soul,  out  of  which  comes  all 
thought.  Society  is  not  composed  of  unchang- 
ing atoms.  The  individuals  who  compose 
Society  are  as  changeable  and  fleeting  as  the 
winds.  All  things  pass  away.  God  after  god, 
dynasty  after  dynasty,  have  risen  and  fallen, 
to  give  place  to  other  gods  and  dynasties, 
whose  reign  shall  be  but  for  a  day.  But  chance 
is  not  the  secret  of  change.  The  world  is  a 
growth.  Society  is  a  growth.  First  comes  the 
lower,  then  the  higher,  and  next  the  higher 
still.  More  and  more  does  Society  become  the 
incarnation  of  a  noble  purpose.  I  am  not  one 
of  those  who  believe  that  progress  is  inevita- 
ble, in  the  sense  of  being  produced  by  a  blind 
evolutionary  force;  I  am  certain  that  a  very 
large  amount  of  devolution  has  now  and  again 
taken  place,  but  the  history  of  man  to  date 
has,  upon  the  whole,  been  upward,  and  so  it 
will,  I  believe,  continue  to  be.  As  the  world 
has  grown,  so  will  it  continue  to  grow. 

The  Society  of  the  past  has  been  based  very 
largely  upon  force.  Not  altogether,  for  no 
society  could  have  endured  for  a  month  with- 
out a  modicum  of  freedom,  but  for  the  most 
part  it  has  been  based  on  the  insecure  founda- 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

tion  of  coercion.  The  religion,  the  morality, 
the  governments  of  men  have  been  maintained 
by  the  military  and  the  police.  Through  gener- 
ation after  generation  the  cry  has  gone  forth 
to  men  from  the  dictators  of  Society:  "You 
must  think  what  we  tell  you  to  think;  you  must 
feel  as  we  tell  you  to  feel;  you  must  do  what 
we  tell  you  to  do;  and  you  must  abstain  from 
all  that  we  forbid."  More  than  once  the 
deepest  wisdom  in  the  world  has  been  crushed 
under  the  burden  of  these  commands,  enforced 
by  ignorant  and  brutal  hirelings.  Neverthe- 
less, out  of  the  heart  of  Solitude  have  come 
great  thoughts  and  mighty  aspirations  which 
Society  was  unable  to  kill,  because  within  that 
Solitude  the  divinity  of  man  was  brooding,  and 
keeping  watch  that  no  true  value  should  ever- 
lastingly perish. 

Slowly,  but  surely,  a  new  spirit  is  coming  into 
our  world,  a  spirit  that  teaches  us  that  physical 
force  is  no  real  force,  after  all;  that  the 
Niagara-torrent  of  the  heart,  the  Nile-stream 
of  the  mind,  cannot  by  any  human  agency  be 
prevented  from  reaching  their  native  ocean. 
More  and  more  Society  learns,  as  the  meaning 
of  love  dawns  upon  the  race,  that  government 
by  physical  force  is  fallacious;  that  love  is  the 
64 


SOCIETY   AND   SOLITUDE 

only  cohesive  force  that  will  bind  nations  and 
individuals  together.  The  thought  of  love,  too, 
is  modifying  all  our  old  notions  of  religion  and 
morality.  In  the  past  both  religion  and 
morality  dealt  largely  with  the  terrors  of  the 
law;  a  species  of  terrorism  inimical  to  all  sound 
morals  and  religion  was  inculcated.  Gradually, 
however,  the  conservative  mind  is  learning  to 
perceive,  what  lonely  prophets  have  known  for 
generations,  that  religion  and  morality  are  the 
natural  gestures  of  man's  mind;  that  they  are 
not  commandments  or  prohibitions;  and  that 
no  supernatural  god,  or  earthly  governor,  is 
responsible  for  them,  or  required  to  enforce 
their  mandates;  that  they  are,  indeed,  the 
natural  flowering  of  our  highest  faculties.  In 
the  light  of  reason,  the  uselessness  of  attempt- 
ing to  bolster  up  that  which  is  natural  to  man 
becomes  clear.  It  was  only  the  false  elements 
in  religion  and  morality  that  needed  the  coercive 
power  of  government  to  maintain  them,  and 
not  until  these  false  elements  pass  away  shall 
the  values  of  religion  and  morality  be  clearly 
seen.  As  knowledge  grows,  however,  and  love 
overcomes  hate,  the  excrescences  of  religion 
and  morality  begin  to  disappear.  To  know 
the  greatness  of  man,  and  to  love  man  because 
65 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

he  is  divine — this  is  the  only  true  religion; 
this  is  the  only  true  morality.  In  the  past 
Society  has  been  mainly  concerned  with  prop- 
erty rights.  But  love  knows  no  property 
rights.  Love  says:  "Let  us  sit  down  together, 
and  share  our  good."  Love  knows  no  dis- 
tinction between  mine  and  thine.  The  only 
property  which  maketh  men  rich  is  a  common 
holding  in  truth,  beauty  and  goodness.  There 
are  universal  spiritual  properties  more  real 
than  air  or  sunlight,  and  all  of  them  are  con- 
vertible into  love.  We  do  not  see  very  clearly 
to-day  the  relations  between  these  universal 
properties  and  real  estate,  or  stocks  and  bonds, 
but  it  shall  yet  dawn  upon  Society,  as  it  has 
dawned  upon  many  a  poet  and  prophet  of  the 
wilderness,  when  the  secret  of  life,  only  to  be 
learned  through  a  valiant  comradeship,  is 
found,  that  no  material  possessions  are  as 
valuable  as  the  possession  of  warm  human 
hearts,  and  that,  in  order  to  possess  these,  we 
had  better  throw  away  our  gold  and  silver,  if 
they  stand  in  our  way.  Society  is  destined  to 
be  an  association  of  lovers,  whose  ardent  woo- 
ing of  all  that  is  truly  large  in  individuals  shall 
put  to  shame  all  the  amatory  wooing  of  the 
present  and  the  past.  I  fancy  that  there  will 


SOCIETY  AND   SOLITUDE 

be  something  amatory  in  the  higher  affection, 
although  it  will  come  from  an  amativeness  that 
has  been  transfigured;  for  when  persons  truly 
love  each  other  they  do  not  strike  the  attitude 
of  one  about  to  plunge  into  a  cold  bath  with 
the  temperature  at  zero.  Love  must  express 
itself  in  some  fashion.  And  Whitman's  poems, 
in  the  division  of  Leaves  of  Grass  called 
Calamus,  contain  words  which  express  literally, 
and  not  figuratively,  the  coming  passion  of  man 
for  man.  Indeed  to  the  "good  gray  poet,"  as 
we  may  truly  believe,  the  terms  of  endearment 
employed  were  not  hollow,  but  the  echoes  of 
sweet  and  blessed  moods. 

Love  is  a  revealer,  but  it  is  not  the  only 
revealer,  of  life.  There  could  even  be  too 
much  love,  if  individuals  were  not  gifted  with 
intelligence.  It  is  sometimes  unwise  to  view 
things  at  close  range.  The  azure-hued  moun- 
tains of  the  distance  are  only  jagged  rocks 
when  reached.  And  when  one  stands  too  near 
to  Society,  the  azure-hued  ideal  of  the  spirit 
fades  into  the  grayness  of  the  mass.  No 
matter  to  what  heights  evolution  may  take  us, 
the  habit  of  Solitude  will  always  be  required 
for  the  highest  human  welfare.  The  readjust- 
ments of  Society  can  come  only  through  the 
67 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

visions  and  meditations  of  the  lonely  thinkers. 
Society  is  always  the  word  that  man  has 
spoken;  Solitude  is  the  word  that  man  is  speak- 
ing, or  will  speak.  No  matter  how  strong  a 
man's  love  for  his  fellows  may  be,  his  love,  to 
be  clear-sighted,  requires  that  he  shall  go  away 
occasionally  from  its  object,  that  he  may  com- 
mune alone  with  the  Alone,  and  thus  renew 
his  strength.  One  does  not  love  his  friends 
with  the  right  fervor,  if  they  are  always  within 
the  sweep  of  his  daily  vision.  Most  of  the  fric- 
tion of  married  life  comes  from  the  partners 
seeing  too  much  of  each  other.  Silence  is 
needed  for  our  welfare  as  well  as  speech; 
Solitude  as  well  as  Society. 

An  article  of  the  ancient  creeds  holds  that 
dualism  is  a  fact  of  the  individual,  cutting  him 
in  two.  One  of  these  divisions  is  called  the 
natural  man;  the  other  is  called  the  spiritual 
man.  There  is  also  supposed  to  be  an  inherent 
antipathy  between  the  two.  Not  a  few  power- 
ful minds  have  believed  in  this  antagonism,  and 
Paul  made  a  religion  out  of  it.  That  such  a 
division  exists  I  admit,  but  there  is  no  reason 
why  it  should.  The  natural  man  and  the 
spiritual  man  should  embrace  and  kiss  each 
other,  and  become  one  in  the  flesh  and  the 


SOCIETY  AND  SOLITUDE 

spirit.  The  spiritual  man,  at  bottom,  is  only 
the  natural  man  in  full-blown  dignity  of  pur- 
pose, the  natural  man  clothed  with  the  cosmic 
vision.  The  doctrine  that  every  individual  who 
is  born  into  the  world  must  be  born  again  is 
a  psychological  truth,  but  this  psychological 
truth  no  more  means  that  the  natural  man  is 
to  be  put  aside  than  entering  a  university  means 
that  the  new  university  man  is  to  put  aside  the 
knowledge  acquired  in  the  preparatory  school, 
or  the  home.  The  two  go  naturally  together. 
No  man  is  spiritual  who  is  not  natural.  The 
flesh  is  not  despised  by  the  person  who  has 
penetrated  the  mystery  of  the  new  birth;  it  has 
merely  taken  on  a  spiritual  meaning;  it  has 
been  transfigured.  True,  it  must  not  be  al- 
lowed to  run  riot,  as  perhaps  it  did  in  the 
older  and  more  barbarous  period;  it  must  now 
take  on  higher  purposes.  But  every  legitimate 
desire  of  the  flesh  is  no  less  legitimate  under 
the  moral  government  of  the  spirit  than  it  was 
in  the  day  of  anarchy.  One  must  not  fail  to 
appreciate  all  that  was  genuine  in  the  old-time 
appeal.  The  natural  man  sings: 

"If  she  be  not  fair  to  me, 
What  care  I  how  fair  she  be," 


THE   SPIRIT  OF    LIFE 

The  sentiment  sounds  selfish,  and  it  may  be 
selfish,  but  there  is,  even  for  the  spiritual  man, 
a  certain  logic  to  be  found  therein.  If  the 
flowers  of  the  springtime  did  not  bloom  for  us; 
if  the  trees  did  not  murmur  in  the  summer 
breeze,  if  the  breath  of  the  mountains  and  the 
sea  did  not  bring  its  delicious  coolness  for  us, 
then  we  might  well  say,  What  does  it  matter 
whether  these  things  be  or  no,  since  they  have 
no  connection  with  our  organs  of  sense?  If  it 
were  possible  for  one  to  be  born  without  the 
five  senses,  what  would  it  matter  to  him  if 
the  spirits  of  the  rest  of  us  were  thrilling  with 
delight  through  contact  with  the  glories  of  the 
earth?  The  fairness  that  is  not  for  us,  and 
which  can  never  be  for  us,  is  a  fairness  which, 
so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  might  as  well  never 
have  existed.  If  one  has  never  seen  the  light, 
the  light  simply  does  not  exist  for  him.  The 
so-called  selfishness  of  the  natural  man  is  often 
nothing  more  than  the  commendable  desire  that 
the  fairness  of  the  world  may  be  his,  in  order 
that  he  may  appraise  its  fairness  at  its  proper 
value,  and  not  be  a  thing  to  fill  him  with 
melancholy  thoughts  that  turn  all  existence  into 
dust  and  ashes.  The  natural  man  makes  a 
legitimate  demand.  The  beautiful  world  does 
70 


SOCIETY  AND   SOLITUDE 

belong  to  him;  it  belongs  to  all  of  us.  But 
the  natural  man  makes  the  mistake,  until  his 
spiritual  sight  is  opened,  of  attempting  to 
enter  violently  and  illegally  into  his  possessions. 
He  has  never  seen  himself  in  his  relation  to  his 
brethren.  He  has  believed  that  the  world  be- 
longed to  him  and  to  his  family.  In  his  selfish- 
ness, he  has  even  called  upon  the  Almighty,  in 
the  words  of  a  rhyming  caricature  of  the  Cal- 
vinist's  creed,  to 

"Save  me  and  my  wife, 
My  son  Joe,  and  his  wife, 
We  four,  and  no  more." 

He  has  been  spiritually  blind,  and  his  blind- 
ness has  brought  him  nothing  but  pain.  He 
may  not  enter  into  his  inheritance  until  he  per- 
ceives that  he  is  but  one  member  of  a  family 
to  which  every  son  and  daughter  of  Adam  be- 
longs. When  he  perceives  that  all  men  and 
women  and  children  are  growing  dear  to  him; 
when  his  outlook  is  no  longer  bounded  by  the 
family  hearthstone;  then,  and  not  till  then,  is 
he  able  to  make  all  things  his  own.  By  giving 
himself  freely  and  unreservedly  to  all,  all  is 
given  in  turn  to  him.  Then  the  fairness  of  the 
world  becomes  his  spiritual  possession,  the 
71 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

glory  of  the  world  enters  into  his  heart;  he 
feels  the  genial  influences  of  all  things  dwell- 
ing with  him :  the  men,  women  and  the  children ; 
the  flower-spotted  meadows;  the  swift-flowing 
streams;  the  placid  lakes;  the  green  fields;  the 
venerable  woods;  the  silence  of  the  stars;  the 
strength  of  the  hills;  the  whisper  of  the  wind; 
the  strong  voice  of  the  sea.  He  is  now  at  home 
in  the  great  sky-spaces;  the  gods  are  his 
familiar  companions;  he  communes  with  the 
mighty  soul  of  nature. 

Not  in  Society,  but  in  Solitude,  does  the 
master  learn  his  lessons.  Nay,  one  may  not  be 
a  master,  until  he  has  wrestled  with  himself 
in  the  lonely  field  of  Solitude,  as  Jacob  wrestled 
with  the  angel  that  dark  night  in  the  lonely 
valley.  Let  us  be  fair  to  Society,  however. 
If  in  Solitude  we  learn  to  solve  the  lessons 
of  life,  it  is  Society  that  gives  the  problems  to 
be  solved,  and  is  the  inspiration  that  compels 
us  to  solve  them.  Society  is  the  raw  material 
of  all  problems.  Even  as  God  could  not  be,  if 
man  were  not,  neither  could  man  be  without 
Society.  One  may  retire  from  the  dust  and 
sweat  and  roar  of  the  city  to  cool  his  fevered 
brow  in  the  cool  air  of  the  mountains  and  the 
lakes,  but  nature  has  an  arctic  temperature  for 
72 


SOCIETY  AND   SOLITUDE 

the  man  who  becomes  a  misanthrope.  To  him 
who  has  fought  a  good  fight,  and  failed  in  the 
seeming,  a  kind  heaven  often  peoples  his  soli- 
tude with  angels  and  archangels,  but  the  misan- 
thrope shall  find  in  Solitude  only  a  whip  of 
scorpions.  No  one  can  flee  from  himself,  and 
when  one  would  flee  from  human  relationships 
the  gate  of  peace  is  barred  for  evermore,  un- 
less he  turns  back  to  go  where  the  voice  of 
duty  is  calling.  One  may  ascend  the  mountain 
and  be 'transfigured,  but  the  halo  is  quickly  lost, 
if  one  does  not  return  to  the  plain  where  his 
brethren  are  fighting  the  battle  in  which  all 
should  participate.  There  is  grim  satire  in 
the  lines  on  the  parish  priest  of  Austerlitz, 
written  by  the  Rev.  Reginald  Heber  Howe, 
that  every  anchorite  should  take  to  heart. 

"The  parish  priest 
Of  Austerlitz 

Climbed  up  in  a  high  church  steeple, 
To  be  nearer  God 
So  that  he  might  hand 
His  word  down  to  his  people. 

And  in  sermon  script 
He  daily  wrote 

What  he  thought  was  sent  from  heaven, 
78 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

And  he  dropped  this  down 
On  his  people's  heads, 
Two  times  one  day  in  seven. 

In  his  age  God  said 

'Come   down   and   die/ 

And  he  cried  out  from  the  steeple, 

'Where  art  thou,  Lord?' 

And  the  Lord  replied, 

'Down  here  among  my  people.'  " 

The  lovers  of  Solitude  are  those  who  hope 
to  discover  in  their  thinking  and  dreaming  an 
ideal  world.  Dear,  indeed,  is  the  City  of  God 
to  the  soul  whose  heart  loves  justice  and  beauty, 
and  longs  with  a  mighty  passion  for  the  society 
in  which  all  men  and  women  are  fair.  The 
day  is  always  poor  and  mean  to  the  man  of  the 
larger  vision.  The  deeper  self  grows  sick  with 
every  day's  report  of  sordidness  and  crime. 
The  life  around  seems  empty,  a  mere  collec- 
tion of  struggling  atoms,  owning  no  law  but  the 
law  of  force,  and  in  their  labor  seeking  naught 
but  selfish  ends.  From  the  turmoil  of  Society, 
the  idealist  would  wend  his  way  to  the  vale  of 
Solitude,  in  which  no  sound  of  sorrow  should 
come  to  mar  his  everlasting  calm.  But  there 
is  no  such  Solitude  to  be  discovered.  The 
74 


SOCIETY   AND   SOLITUDE 

city's  roar  is  soon  heard  even  on  the  mountains 
and  by  the  shore  of  the  sea.  The  ideal  world 
must  be  found  in  Society  or  nowhere;  in  the 
bosom  of  Society  the  idealist  must  find  his  true 
Solitude,  or  none  shall  be  found.  Destroy  the 
world  which  seems  so  ugly  to  the  eyes  of  the 
idealist,  and  the  ideal  is  also  gone,  for  the  ideal 
world  is  built  of  the  atoms  of  the  real  world, 
and  one  may  not  survive  if  the  other  perishes. 
Our  age  is  preeminent  to  a  degree  over  all 
other  ages  in  its  worship  of  outward  nature.  It 
is  a  worship  that  was  not  characteristic  of  the 
classical  world,  or  of  the  mediaeval.  One  may 
justly  query  whether  the  modern  reverence  is 
not  overdone.  Far  be  it  from  my  purpose  to 
utter  a  word  against  the  beauty  of  the  natural 
world.  True,  all  is  not  tranquil  and  serene 
within  it.  Earthquake  and  tornado  and  vol- 
canic eruption  come  to  jar  and  jolt.  The  rattle- 
snake under  the  rock  and  the  nightshade  in 
the  glen  mar  the  pleasures  of  those  who  would 
find  in  nature  only  a  sweet  rapture  of  delight- 
ful fancy.  But  there  is,  nevertheless,  a  charm 
in  the  loneliness  of  the  hills,  or  the  sand  rim 
of  the  sea;  a  charm  that  dwells  everlastingly  on 
the  banks  of  a  babbling  brook.  Yet  let  us  be- 
ware lest  we  deceive  ourselves.  Nature  has  no 
75 


THE    SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

meaning  apart  from  man.  She  wears  no  sing- 
ing robes,  save  to  the  listening  ear.  Were  the 
individuals  of  the  world  more  humane  in  their 
manifestations  than  they  are,  they,  rather  than 
nature,  would  be  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes. 
Even  as  it  is,  one  finds  nature  most  charming 
when  wedded  to  human  interests.  The  Hudson 
is  as  beautiful  as  the  Rhine,  but  on  the  Hudson 
there  are  no  castles  and  watch-towers,  such  as 
have  made  the  Rhine  famous  in  song  and  story. 
No  spot  on  earth  is  sacred  soil,  save  those 
places  where  men  have  bravely  toiled  and  nobly 
dreamed. 

Solitude  we  may  define  as  only  a  vision  of 
the  Society  that  is  to  be.  Even  now  the  Society 
of  the  future  is  slowly  taking  its  shape,  first 
in  the  minds  of  the  dreamers,  and  later  in  the 
structure  built  of  daily  acts.  Between  the 
Society  of  to-day  and  the  Children  of  Solitude 
there  is  an  irreconcilable  antagonism  at  many 
points;  between  ideal  Society  and  rational  Soli- 
tude there  is  none.  Every  thinker,  every 
prophet,  every  poet,  is  an  architect  of  the 
future.  Aspiration  is  the  cornerstone  of  the 
ideal  city  of  our  dreams.  In  the  best  sense  of 
a  much-abused  word,  religion  is  the  cord  which 
connects  the  pearls  of  our  thought,  for  religion 
76 


SOCIETY  AND   SOLITUDE 

in  essence  is  love  to  God — truth,  beauty,  good- 
ness— and  love  to  man,  who  is  the  incarnation 
of  God  from  generation  to  generation. 

As  the  centuries  roll  on  the  conviction  grows 
in  human  minds  that  all  things  work  together 
for  good  to  those  who  love  the  ideal.  It  is 
by  no  means  certain  that  there  is  an  om- 
nipotence either  within  or  without  the  visible 
universe ;  an  omnipotence,  that  is,  which  can  do 
any  conceivable  thing,  in  any  conceivable  way. 
But  the  Holy  Spirit,  whose  other  name  is 
Humanity,  is,  for  every  rational  purpose,  om- 
nipotent whenever  the  vision  is  clear.  Without 
God,  or  the  Divine  Ideal,  we  are  but  dust;  in 
the  ideal  we  are  all-powerful  to  build  the  city 
of  our  dreams.  As  individuals,  we  may  be 
conscious  factors  in  the  work  of  fulfilling  the 
ideal;  but  whether  we  are  conscious,  or  are  not 
conscious;  whether  we  aim  to  build,  or  aim  to 
destroy;  whether  we  strive  to  help,  or  strive 
to  hinder,  there  is  an  ideal  in  the  world  which 
alone  is  incapable  of  permanent  defeat,  an  ideal 
which  will  be  found  gleaming  wheresoever  the 
human  light  dwelleth.  The  ideal  in  man  is  the 
thinker,  the  dreamer,  the  prophet,  the  poet,  the 
artist,  the  creator  of  the  eternal  values  of  life. 
Its  avatars  are  the  individuals  who  receive  these 
77 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

glorious  names.  Out  of  the  heart  of  Solitude 
they  have  proclaimed  the  dawn ;  they  have  read 
the  stars  of  destiny;  they  have  bathed  in  the 
all-embracing  spirit  of  the  ineffable.  As  the 
Children  of  the  Light,  they  have  done  whatso- 
ever their  hands  found  to  do,  and  through  their 
labors  Society  grows  slowly  into  the  living 
reality  of  their  consecrated  vision;  and  so  long 
as  the  light  continues  to  shine,  and  their  strength 
fails  not,  they  will  labor  to  create  a  Society 
in  which  truth,  beauty  and  goodness  shall  reign 
supreme  over  all  and  in  all. 


78 


HEROES   AND   HERO-WORSHIP 

TF  one  could  penetrate  the  outward  lives  of 
•*•  persons  who  appear  commonplace  and  dis- 
appointing, so  as  to  reach  their  secret  desires, 
one  would  often  have  revelations  of  superb 
beauty  not  now  vouchsafed.  Every  man  would 
possess  for  us  an  infinite  value,  if  he  could 
always  realize  his  manhood.  We  are,  how- 
ever, often  forced  to  confess,  even  against  our 
will,  that  the  lives  of  most  persons  are  hideous; 
that  they  are  not  true ;  that  they  are  not  beau- 
tiful; that  they  are  not  good.  It  is  the  con- 
stant misrepresentation  of  human  nature  on  the 
part  of  those  who  should  truly  embody  it  that 
makes  the  pessimist  scornful  of  those  who  be- 
lieve in  a  Religion  of  Humanity. 

But  most  men  are  better  than  they  appear. 
In  the  Hero,  one  finds  the  genuine  stuff  of  self- 
hood, and  in  Hero-worship  the  latent  goodness 
and  largeness  of  men  peeps  out.  Man  has 
always  been  a  Hero-worshipper;  he  always  will 
be  one.  Plutarch  and  Nepos  attest  the  interest 
79 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

of  the  ancient  world  in  its  Heroes.  Xenophon's 
Memorabilia  of  Socrates  and  the  Four  Gospels 
reveal  how  a  great  man  looms  large  on  the 
'  horizon  of  time.  Boswell's  biography  of  Dr. 
Johnson  is  a  book  that  will  never  cease  to 
fascinate  readers,  because  it  is  an  intimate 
revelation  of  a  great  character.  Carlyle's 
Heroes  and  Hero-Worship  has  a  tonic  quality 
that  makes  all  heroic  dreaming  seem  feasible. 
History  at  bottom  is,  as  our  poet-philosopher 
informed  us,  only  the  biography  of  great  men. 
Some  modern  scientific  philosophers,  like  Her- 
bert Spencer,  and  Henry  Thomas  Buckle,  have 
sought  to  wean  us  from  this  theory,  but  without 
success.  Carlyle's  theory  is  tenoned  and  mor- 
tised in  the  granite  of  established  fact. 

Great  history  is  the  record  of  what  great  men 
have  done;  little  history  is  the  record  of  what 
little  men  have  done.  In  our  time  most  of  the 
popular  Heroes — the  men  occupying  executive 
chairs,  sitting  in  the  senate-chamber,  and  writ- 
ing books — are  small  figures  whom  future  ages 
are  not  likely  to  take  the  trouble  to  become  well 
informed  upon.  Our  Heroes  are  only  too  often 
pseudo-Heroes,  of  whom  we  should  be 
ashamed,  as  some  day  we  shall  be.  Alas !  that 
so  humiliating  a  confession  must  be  made ! 
80 


HEROES  AND   HERO-WORSHIP 

I  admit  cheerfully  that  Spencer  and  Buckle 
are  not  altogether  in  the  wrong.  Every  man, 
no  matter  how  great  he  may  be,  is  to  some 
extent  the  creature  of  his  time.  Jesus  did  not 
monopolize  all  the  goodness  of  his  country. 
There  were  great  teachers  just  before  him, 
from  whom  he  had  profited.  The  Golden  Rule 
and  the  Lord's  Prayer  were  quotations  on  his 
lips.  Even  the  Pharisees  were  not  all  bad; 
doubtless  many  of  them  were  very  worthy  citi- 
zens; while  the  New  Testament  appears  to  be 
lamentably  ignorant  of  the  Essenes,  from  whom 
Jesus  must  have  drawn  so  much  of  his  inspira- 
tion. Even  John  the  Baptist  was  not  quite  a 
voice  crying  in  the  wilderness.  Martin  Luther 
was  not  the  whole  of  Protestantism,  and 
Shakespeare  was  not  the  only  great  dramatist 
of  the  spacious  times  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  As 
Horace  said,  there  were  brave  men  before 
Agamemnon.  Great  men  are  seldom  found 
quite  alone.  Nevertheless,  the  Hero  always 
brings  into  the  world  a  light  and  strength  of 
purpose  that  were  never  here  before  he  came, 
and  which  were  in  no  way  derived  from  the 
hoi  pottoi,  but  were  innate.  All  Heroes  may 
be  said  to  belong  to  the  same  spiritual  family, 
but  no  two  members  of  this  family  have  quite 
81 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

the  same  traits.  Herbert  Spencer,  although 
repudiating  the  Hero,  was  himself  one,  and 
proved  himself  to  be  the  glowing  refutation  of 
his  own  argument.  What  does  it  matter  if 
Alfred  Russel  Wallace  was  the  co-discoverer 
with  Darwin  of  the  law  of  Natural  Selection? 
He  did  not  write  the  Origin  of  Species,  and  he 
has  frankly  admitted  that  he  could  not  have 
written  it. 

Let  men  say  what  they  will,  the  habit  of 
Hero-worship  is  incorrigible.  People  feel  justly 
that  the  Hero  is  the  one  upon  whom  they  must 
lavish  their  attention.  And  yet  the  Hero  never 
forgets  his  kinship  to  the  race.  No  matter  how 
great  he  may  be,  he  is  always  a  great  man, 
and  not  a  superman.  Tennyson  was  true  to 
life  when  he  wrote  his  famous  lines  in  In 
Memoriam  on  the  feeling  of  one  who  had  be- 
come a  celebrity. 

"Dost  thou  look  back  on  what  hath  been? 
As  some  divinely  gifted  man, 
Whose  life  in  low  estate  began, 
And  on  a  simple  village  green; 

Who  breaks  his  birth's  invidious  bar, 
And  grasps  the  skirts  of  happy  chance, 
And  breasts  the  blows  of  circumstance, 
And  grapples  with  his  evil  star; 


HEROES  AND   HERO-WORSHIP 

Who  makes  by  force  his  merit  known, 
And  lives  to  clutch  the  golden  keys, 
To  mould  a  mighty  state's  decrees, 
And  shape  the  whisper  of  the  throne; 

And  moving  up  from  high  to  higher, 
Becomes  on  Fortune's  crowning  slope 
The  pillar  of  a  people's  hope, 
The  centre  of  a  world's  desire; 

Yet  feels  as  in  a  distant  dream, 
When  all  his  active  powers  are  still, 
A  distant  dearness  in  the  hill, 
A  secret  sweetness  in  the  stream, 

The  limit  of  his  narrower  fate, 
While  yet  beside  its  vocal  springs 
He  played  at  counsellors  and  kings, 
With  one  that  was  his  earliest  mate; 

Who  ploughs  with  pain  his  native  lea, 
And  reaps  the  labour  of  his  hands, 
Or  in  the  furrow  musing  stands: 
'Does  my  old  friend  remember  me?'" 

Browning  puts  in  the  mouth  of  Paracelsus 
the  prayer: 

"Make  no  more  giants,  God,  but  elevate  the  race!" 

But  Humanity  feels  instinctively  that  the  giants 
are  its  glory.  There  was  no  Whig  farmer 
ploughing  his  rough  New  England  hillside  who 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

was  not  a  little  more  certain  that  life  was 
worth  living  when  he  thought  of  Daniel  Web- 
ster. True  democracy  wages  no  war  on  the 
giants;  its  effort  is  to  level  up  men  to  the 
measure  of  the  giants,  in  order  that  we  may 
have  greater  ones.  The  glory  of  the  man  who 
ploughs  in  pain  his  native  lea  is  not  always 
clear,  but  he  reveals,  by  his  worship  of  the 
Hero,  that  he  has  some  of  the  quality  of  the 
friend  who  has  become  the  pillar  of  a  people's 
hope,  the  center  of  a  world's  desire. 

The  person  who  believes  that  life  means  a 
leveling  down  has  no  true  conception  of  what 
democracy  is.  All  the  great  prophets  of  democ- 
racy who  have  come  to  us  with  "thoughts  that 
breathe  and  words  that  burn"  have  believed 
in  the  innate  goodness  and  greatness  of  man. 
They  have  seen  the  goodness  of  Jesus  latent 
everywhere.  Like  the  impetuous  Father 
Taylor,  who,  when  asked  if  he  believed  that 
another  man  as  good  as  Jesus  had  ever  lived, 
replied,  "Yes,  millions  of  'em,"  the  prophets 
of  democracy  in  general  have  felt  that  there 
was  something  divine  in  each  individual  of 
all  these  teeming  millions  of  the  globe.  The 
towering  genius  of  a  Plato,  an  Aristotle,  or  a 
Bacon;  the  music  of  a  Bach,  a  Beethoven,  or  a 
84 


HEROES   AND    HERO-WORSHIP 

Wagner;  the  poetry  of  a  Homer,  a  Vergil,  or 
a  Milton;  the  painting  of  a  Leonardo,  a  Titian, 
or  a  Raphael — these  glories  are  individual,  yet 
they  are  more  than  individual,  for  they  are 
born,  in  some  mysterious  fashion,  out  of  the 
deeps  of  Humanity.  Perhaps  we  may  venture 
to  say  that  no  man  is  better  or  greater  than 
another  in  soul;  each  is  different,  but  shall  we 
say  that  the  whole  of  any  man,  if  we  could  find 
it  gleaming  upon  our  vision,  is  better  than  the 
whole  of  any  other  man?  We  might  find  per- 
fection in  every  form,  if  we  could  discover  the 
essence  of  every  form,  an  individual  perfec- 
tion in  each,  nowhere  else  to  be  duplicated.  The 
Hero  is  most  heroic  when  he  proves  to  us  that 
we  are  quite  as  heroic  as  he.  We  shall  never 
sing  the  same  song,  or  paint  the  same  picture, 
or  produce  the  same  strain  of  music;  to  each 
Hero  the  expression  of  his  own  individuality, 
but  one  may  not  say  of  any  that  it  is  not  in  him 
to  sing  a  song,  or  paint  a  picture,  or  compose 
music  somewhere  or  other,  in  time  or  in  eternity, 
as  sublimely  as  the  greatest  Hero  of  history 
has  done. 

The  inner  life — the  ideal — is  that  which  we 
would  externalize.     Our  noblest  life  is  the  life 
of  our  dream-world.     Progress  is  the  rise  of 
85 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

individuals  to  a  consciousness  of  power,  the 
power  that  enables  them  to  express  in  tangible 
symbols  the  realities  of  their  innerness.  We 
are  learning  that  to  be  just  human  and  natural 
is  the  true  greatness  of  heroism.  One  does 
not  worship  blizzards,  cyclones  and  earth- 
quakes; one  only  fears  them.  But  when  the 
spring  makes  the  grass  green,  and  the  violet 
blue,  and  the  leaves  of  myriad  trees  to  flutter 
in  the  gentle  breeze,  there  is  in  our  hearts  an 
almost  irresistible  impulse  to  worship.  The 
spring  is  beautiful,  because  it  is  correlated  to 
the  beauty  that  is  of  our  minds;  nay,  it  is  the 
beauty,  in  part,  of  our  minds.  And  so  with 
man :  his  brag  and  bluster  and  vain  stretching 
move  us  not,  but  when  harmonious  sweetness 
and  beauty  are  developed  in  a  man,  the  divinity 
of  it  all  finds  us.  Greatness  does  not  lie  in  a 
pose,  or  in  a  petty  talent  carefully  nurtured, 
but  in  that  genius  which  is  the  flower  of  simple 
manhood.  The  polished  pebble  may  despise 
the  diamond,  but  it  is  the  diamond  that  com- 
mands the  markets  of  the  world,  while  the 
polished  pebble  has  few  to  do  it  reverence ;  so, 
too,  is  it  with  the  man  of  carefully  nourished, 
but  slender  talent,  who  may  despise  the  genius. 
The  ages  find  that  one  blast  upon  the  bugle- 
86 


HEROES  AND    HERO-WORSHIP 

horn  of  genius  is  worth  more  than  all  the  pip- 
ing of  the  little  talents.  To  be  a  genius  means 
that  the  common  attributes  of  Humanity  have 
bourgeoned. 

The  Hero  is  the  large  man  in  us  all;  the 
real  man,  let  us  say.  We  read  the  tale  of 
some  brave  fellow,  and  wish  that  we  had  been 
on  the  field  of  battle  with  him.  We  read  the 
poem  of  some  Hero  of  the  garret,  and  find  our 
own  hearts  speaking.  We  listen  to  a  symphony, 
and  deeper  selves  are  revealed  to  us,  as  if  by 
magic.  We  never  hear  of  goodness,  but  we 
are  convinced  that  we  are  good.  And  who 
shall  say  that  we  are  not,  if  we  suffer  with  the 
Hero  in  his  bloody  sweat?  Is  not  goodness 
ours,  if  we  stand  ready  to  perform  a  noble 
deed,  inspired  by  the  heroism  of  another?  It 
is  not  so  much  what  a  man  has  done,  as  the 
spirit  with  which  he  receives  what  has  been 
done,  that  counts.  The  man  who  feels  the 
tenderness  of  a  Buddha  is  a  Buddha;  if  a  man 
forgives  his  enemies  in  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  is 
not  he,  too,  a  Christ  in  his  day  and  genera- 
tion? The  Hero  shines  with  the  light  of  his 
soul,  and  lights  every  other  heroic  torch;  un- 
less, indeed,  one  has  the  power  to  make  others 
heroic,  he  is  not  a  Hero.  No  man  is  great 
87 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

unless  greatness  flows  from  him  into  other  men. 
The  attempt  to  play  the  role  of  a  Hero  alone 
were  as  ridiculous  as  to  be  an  author  without 
readers,  or  an  orator  to  whom  nobody  would 
listen. 

The  Hero  is  one  who  is  always  true  to  him- 
self. To  his  age  he  may  appear  a  little  off- 
color,  if  his  heroism  be  of  the  intellect.  He 
may  not  be  materially  prosperous;  probably 
will  not  be.  People  will  overlook  his  virtues, 
and  discover  only  his  vices.  The  words  of  love 
and  good  fellowship  the  multitude  will  not  hear, 
but  he  will,  no  doubt,  be  caught  with  a  wine 
glass  in  his  hand,  or  when  he  speaks  to  persons 
not  over-respectable  in  their  communities.  But 
what  does  it  matter,  if  he  goes  to  the  Cross, 
like  the  Nazarene,  or  the  stake,  like  Giordano 
Bruno,  or  the  scaffold,  like  Sir  Thomas  More, 
or  the  gallows,  like  John  Brown?  It  has  often 
been  true  that  heroism  of  the  noblest  type  led 
but  to  the  grave.  But  we  may  believe  that 
Lowell  saw  both  aspects  of  the  vision  when  he 
wrote  his  well-known  lines : 
"Right  forever  on  the  scaffold,  wrong  forever  on  the 

throne ; 
But  that  scaffold  sways  the  future,  and  behind  the 

dim  unknown 
Standeth    God    within    the    shadow,    keeping    watch 

above  his  own." 


HEROES   AXD    HERO-WORSHIP 

Every  man  is  sooner  or  later  regarded  as  a 
Hero,  if  he  have  not  failed  to  do  his  duty,  as 
he  saw  his  duty.  Walt  Whitman  was  a  Hero 
when  he  refused  to  change  the  lines  of  his 
poems  in  order  to  obtain  popularity,  although 
he  seemed  only  foolish  to  most  of  his  contem- 
poraries. No  doubt  Arnold  Winkelried  seemed 
a  fool  to  his  enemies  when  he  rushed  forth, 
empty-handed,  upon  their  javelins,  and  seized 
them  as  they  pierced  his  breast.  No  doubt 
Richard  of  the  Lion  Heart  and  Saladin  had 
their  detractors  in  their  own  day.  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  is  honored  in  Boston  now,  but 
a  Boston  mob  in  broadcloth  once  had  a  rope 
around  his  neck  with  the  firm  intention  of  hang- 
ing him.  Regulus,  the  Hero  of  the  Romans, 
went  back  to  Carthage,  knowing  that  the  Car- 
thaginians would  put  him  to  death,  but  how  lit- 
tle  did  those  Carthaginians  appreciate  genuine 
heroism  in  an  enemy!  Bruno  and  Savonarola 
going  to  the  flames  for  their  opinions,  and 
Servetus,  too,  how  great  they  were  in  their 
heroism,  and  how  little  did  their  contem- 
poraries perceive  of  their  heroic  quality! 
Martin  Luther  going  to  the  Diet  of  Worms, 
Dr.  Johnson  writing  his  manly  letter  of  inde- 
pendence to  Lord  Chesterfield,  Thomas  Paine 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

giving  up  everything  for  the  cause  of  liberty, 
Byron  hurling  his  defiance  at  Society,  Shelley 
living  in  accordance  with  the  dictates  of  his 
own  reason,  were  all  Heroes.  Socrates  drink- 
ing the  hemlock  when  he  might  have  gone  free 
was  not  less,  but  even  more,  of  a  Hero  than 
Leonidas  with  his  three  hundred  Spartans  keep- 
ing back  the  great  army  of  Xerxes  at  the  pass 
of  Thermopylae.  Goethe  was  a  Hero,  because 
he  was  not  afraid  to  explore  the  recesses  of  his 
own  spirit.  Emerson  was  a  Hero,  because  he 
dared  to  turn  his  back  to  the  Puritanism  of 
New  England.  Dr.  Channing  was  a  Hero 
when  he  split  Congregationalism  with  his  ser- 
mon at  Baltimore,  and  Theodore  Parker  when 
he  stood  almost  alone  in  the  religious  society 
of  America  while  proclaiming  his  transcen- 
dental gospel.  We  seldom  think  of  Edgar 
Allan  Poe  as  a  Hero,  but,  in  his  austere  devo- 
tion to  his  art,  he  was  as  true  a  Hero  as  ever 
lived. 

Every  Hero  is  an  epic  poem.  He  is  of  the 
universal.  Emerson  has  said  that  "All  man- 
kind love  a  lover,"  and  that  should  be  true. 
But  I  think  that  the  real  heroic-lover  will  love 
nothing  less  than  Humanity,  the  world  and  the 
universe.  The  love  of  an  individual,  which 
90 


HEROES  AND   HERO-WORSHIP 

ends  with  the  individual,  means  little.  A  nar- 
row amativeness  does  not  enrich  the  world. 
Love  must  be  cosmic  before  it  can  bud  and 
blossom  in  divinity;  it  must  be  unselfish  and 
unifying.  It  is  only  the  small  and  narrow  soul 
that  has  room  in  his  heart  for  only  one.  The 
Hero  has  room  for  all  Humanity.  Within  the 
heroic  mind  and  heart  there  is  no  place  re- 
served for  the  usurper,  who  would  despotise 
with  selfish  desire.  Every  selfish  man  is  a 
bungling  surgeon  who  always  mutilates  him- 
self. It  is  the  broadening  out  into  the  uni- 
versal, the  cosmic,  that  makes  of  one  a 
Hero. 

The  person  who  does  not  grow  diminishes, 
and  when  the  heroic  element  has  deserted  one, 
that  one  is  but  so  much  dust.  True,  no  heroic 
person  leans  very  heavily  on  his  reputation, 
for  he  knows  that  the  desire  for  a  good  reputa- 
tion among  fools  is  only  a  hobby  of  the  in- 
tellectually unemployed,  and  he  is  always  con- 
tending against  the  orthodoxies  and  civiliza- 
tions of  the  world,  because  civilizations  and 
orthodoxies  are  always  names  given  to  the  out- 
grown. The  heroic  man  is  a  master,  and  ob- 
tains disciples;  any  man  who  refuses  to  wor- 
ship the  idols  of  others  becomes  an  idoL 
91 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

Very  unfortunate  is  he  often  in  these  disciples, 
who  lean  upon  him,  instead  of  standing  upon 
their  own  feet,  in  an  erect  posture.  The 
measure  of  a  man  may  always  be  taken  indeed 
by  his  attitude  towards  others.  It  is  only  the 
small  mind  that  loves  to  have  other  minds  yield 
to  its  ipse  dixit;  the  great  mind  loves  endless 
diversity  of  opinion.  The  truest  follower  of 
Jesus  is  not  the  one  who  always  asks,  "What 
would  Jesus  have  me  do  now?"  but  the  one 
whose  soul,  like  that  of  the  Nazarene,  expands 
beyond  his  time  and  place.  But  it  is  said  that 
a  man  or  woman  who  follows  his  or  her  own 
course,  and  not  some  course  that  has  been 
mapped  out  by  others,  is  ruined.  It  is  a  false 
doctrine.  Every  Hero  follows  his  own  course. 
The  heroic  person  will  not  follow  the  beaten 
path,  if  he  see  a  better  than  the  beaten  path. 
He  will  love  to  walk  outside  this  beaten  path, 
lest  some  strange  flower,  sweeter  than  any  that 
he  has  known,  escape  his  vision.  He  would 
prefer  being  a  citizen  of  Utopia  to  being  a  king 
over  any  country  less  fair.  His  heroism  will 
always  be  impetuously  striving  for  the  Golden 
Age,  and  if  he  leave  the  Old  City  of  God,  it 
will  be  only  because  he  is  seeking  to  found  a 
New  City  of  God.  He  will  not  hate  sin,  as 
9S 


HEROES  AND    HERO-WORSHIP 

the  conformist  hates  it,  for  he  will  seek  to  find 
even  in  sin  the  elements  of  a  larger  civilization. 
And  yet  he  will  always  be  kind,  he  will  not  ad- 
mire the  whip  that  afforded  Nietzsche  so  much 
satisfaction,  for  he  will  never  forget  that  even 
the  fools  and  stupidities  are  his  brethren,  for 
whom  a  glorious  future  will  dawn  when  they 
shall  have  learned  to  leave  their  foolishness 
and  stupidity  behind  them. 

I  have  said  that  man  is  by  nature  a  Hero- 
worshipper,  because  he  sees  that  every  Hero 
belongs  to  his  own  larger  self.  And  is  not  all 
worship  a  worship  of  the  larger  self?  God  is 
but  our  symbol  for  the  Self  that  is  perfectly 
wise  and  good  and  beautiful,  the  Self  purified 
from  all  alloy.  There  are  few  to  whom  the 
worship  of  Absolute  Spirit  is  pleasing;  perhaps, 
in  the  last  analysis,  no  one  has  ever  reached,  or 
ever  will  reach,  such  a  condition  of  mind. 
What,  indeed,  is  the  significance  of  the  failure 
of  Unitarianism  to  satisfy  the  human  heart  and 
mind,  if  it  be  not  that  the  God  of  Unitarianism 
has  seemed  too  far  removed  from  our  warmest 
feelings  and  sweetest  desires?  In  every  age 
man  has  turned  to  some  brother  man,  and  felt 
that  in  communion  with  him  he  was  in  the 
counsels  of  God.  Zarathustra  and  Gautama 
93 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

and  Confucius  were  gods  to  those  to  whom 
they  brought  inspiration,  even  though  they 
themselves  made  no  claim  to  divinity.  People 
turned  to  Jesus,  because  they  needed  a  human 
God.  And  when  even  Jesus  seemed  far  re- 
moved from  them,  and  the  belief  grew  that 
he  had  become  an  inhuman  judge,  holding  court 
in  Heaven,  they  turned  to  the  gentle  mother 
who  had  borne  him,  the  mother  who  had  held 
him  in  her  arms,  from  whom  they  felt  they 
might  receive  tender  motherly  consideration. 
And  this  is  why  they  turned  to  the  holy  men 
and  women  whom  the  Church  placed  in  her 
calendar  of  saints.  Walter  Pater  said  that  the 
smallest  curve  of  a  rose  leaf  was  worth  more 
than  the  formless  being  which  Plato  prized  so 
highly.  People  do  not  love  beauty  or  wisdom 
or  goodness,  save  as  they  see  them  incarnated 
in  some  brother  or  sister  who  is,  or  has  been, 
in  the  flesh.  Shall  we  then  boldly  accept  the 
Hero  as  our  God?  Shall  we  accept  Jesus  as 
our  God?  or  some  one  who  was  nobler  or 
greater  than  Jesus,  if  we  can  find  one? 

No  matter  what  our  answer  to  these  ques- 
tions may  be,  we  shall  find  that  in  all  ages  the 
Hero  has  been  the  real  God  of  worship.     It 
was  the  common  love  of  Homer  that  united 
94 


HEROES  AND   HERO-WORSHIP 

Greece,  so  far  as  Greece  was  united.  What 
enthusiasm  do  we  find  to-day  in  most  lands  for 
the  great  Poet,  or  Literary  Hero,  of  the  peo- 
ple !  How  the  Scotsmen  worship  Burns,  the 
Swedes  Tegner,  the  Norwegians  Bjornson,  the 
French  Moliere,  the  Germans  Goethe,  the  Por- 
tuguese Camoens,  the  Spaniards  Cervantes,  the 
Italians  Dante!  In  all  ages  there  has  always 
been  some  Hero,  or  there  have  been  many 
Heroes  to  be  the  god  or  the  gods  of  the  people. 
Polytheism  is  not  the  irrational  creed  that  mod- 
erns too  often  fancy.  I  am  convinced  that  Hu- 
manity will  always  find  its  divinity  in  Humanity. 
It  requires  its  Divine  Man,  and  will  require 
him,  until  it  is  learned  that  Humanity  is  itself 
divine.  Some  day  the  worshippers  will  all  be 
Heroes  and  gods  themselves.  But  until  then 
there  will  be  for  Humanity,  and  must  be,  some 
men  to  be  worshipped  above  the  rest,  even  as 
Jesus  has  been. 

The  mastership  of  Jesus  is  the  mastership 
which  all  idealists  have  possessed.  Jesus  de- 
clared that  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  was  within 
us,  and  the  years  have  confirmed  his  utterance. 
Eating  and  drinking,  and  other  brute  satisfac- 
tion, are  not  the  pleasures  that  inspire  us;  the 
inspirations  come  from  the  seership  of  the 
95 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

mind  with  the  Divine  Word  which  we  find 
written  in  forest  and  field  and  human  litera- 
ture. We  reverence  the  poets,  the  sages,  the 
saints  and  the  men  of  science  who  have  revealed 
to  us  our  nature  and  our  possibilities.  We 
should  reverence  the  prophet,  whether  he  be 
of  the  first  century  or  the  twentieth.  We  should 
not  desire  lying  flatterers  who  commend  our 
errors.  The  Hero  must  be  a  revealer  of 
beauty,  nor  may  he  be  allowed  to  forget  that 
of  beauty  rational  righteousness  is  a  portion. 
All  the  great  Heroes  have  spoken  eternal  words 
to  us,  and  in  the  doctrine  of  brotherhood,  or 
the  love  of  all  for  all,  Jesus  erected  a  cathedral 
of  the  spirit  that  shall  endure  through  all  the 
ages. 

There  is  a  truth  in  pessimism  which  none  of 
us  can  escape,  a  truth  which  has  never  been 
expressed  better  than  it  has  been  by  Shelley, 
who  was  not  a  pessimist,  but  an  optimist,  in  his 
wonderful  lyric  of  the  skylark.  He  says: 

"We  look  before  and  after, 
And  sigh  for  what  is  not, 
Our  sincerest  laughter 
With  some  pain  is  fraught, 

Our  sweetest  songs  are  those  which  tell  of  saddest 
thought." 

96 


HEROES  AND   HERO-WORSHIP 

Nevertheless,  the  sweet  songs  will  continue  to 
be  sung,  and  the  pain  endured,  because  the 
universe  is  the  incarnation  of  heroic  purpose, 
and  out  of  the  universe,  the  incarnation  of 
heroic  purpose,  all  human  beings  come. 


MORALS 

Herbert  Spencer's  Data  of  Ethics 
was  first  published,  and  for  several 
years  afterwards,  an  intense  fear  prevailed  in 
certain  circles,  lest  Morals  were  in  danger.  It 
was  thought,  in  view  of  the  doctrine  held  by 
the  philosopher  of  evolution,  that  our  moral  no- 
tions must  be  regarded  as  relative  rather  than 
absolute,  a  doctrine  which  found  immediate  ac- 
ceptance in  many  quarters,  that  a  startling  lax- 
ness  in  the  ethical  atmosphere  of  the  future 
was  likely  to  be  found.  The  character  of 
Spencer  himself  no  one  thought  of  impeaching, 
but  doubtless  not  a  few  recalled  the  striking 
words  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  in  The  Scarlet 
Letter,  where  he  said:  "It  is  remarkable  that 
persons  who  speculate  the  most  boldly  often 
conform  with  the  most  perfect  quietude  to  the 
external  regulations  of  society."  The  fear  of 
Spencer's  doctrine  was  due  to  the  feeling  that 
the  disciples  of  the  new  ethics  would  put  into 
practice  some  of  the  dreaded  iconoclasm  of  the 
master. 

96 


MORALS 

There  is  still  considerable  fear  manifested 
on  the  subject  of  Morals,  by  those  who  believe 
that  nothing  but  police  tyranny  and  the  fear  of 
gaol,  or  a  future  inferno,  keeps  the  majority 
of  human  beings  from  doing  mischief.  One 
often  hears  that  Christianity  first  made  the 
world  moral,  and  is  all  that  keeps  it  moral; 
and  that  if  the  Church  and  Christianity  were 
to  pass  away  many  direful  calamities  would  re- 
sult. There  is  doubtless  a  grain  of  truth  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  contention,  for  the  Church 
and  Christianity  are  a  part  of  our  seriousness 
of  mind,  without  which  evils  "might  indeed 
come.  But  to  the  first  part  of  the  contention 
it  is  impossible  for  a  scholar  to  give  his  assent. 
For  paganism  too  was  quite  as  serious-minded 
as  are  our  later  generations;  a  little  more  so, 
I  suspect.  And  one  finds,  in  the  moral  maxims 
of  paganism,  ideals  quite  as  high  as  any  which 
are  upon  the  tongues  of  people  to-day.  "To 
live  is  not  to  live  for  one's  self  alone,  let  us 
help  one  another,"  wrote  the  Greek  Menander. 
"Give  bread  to  a  stranger  in  the  name  of  the 
universal  brotherhood  which  binds  together  all 
men  under  the  common  father  of  nature," 
wrote  the  Roman  Quintilian.  And  thus 
Juvenal:  "What  good  man  will  look  on  any 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

suffering  as  foreign  to  himself?  This  suffering 
is  what  distinguishes  us  from  brutes."  Cicero 
declared  that  "Nature  has  inclined  us  to  love 
men,  and  this  is  the  foundation  of  the  law," 
while  Seneca  wrote,  "We  are  members  of  one 
great  body.  Nature  planted  in  us  a  mutual 
love,  and  fitted  us  for  social  life.  We  must 
consider  that  we  were  born  for  the  good  of 
the  whole."  "Love  mankind,"  said  Marcus 
Aurelius,  and  Epictetus  held  that  "The  uni- 
verse is  but  one  great  city,  full  of  beloved  ones, 
divine  and  human,  by  nature  endeared  to  each 
other."  Plato  taught  that  it  was  never  right 
to  return  an  injury,  and  Cleobulus  wrote,  "We 
should  do  good  to  our  enemy  and  make  him 
our  friend."  Hardly  less  emphatic  was  Va- 
lerius Maximus,  who  said,  "It  is  more  beauti- 
ful to  overcome  injury  by  the  power  of  kind- 
ness, than  to  oppose  to  it  the  obstinacy  of 
hatred."  The  Chinese  Philosopher,  Lao-tse, 
held  that  "The  wise  man  avenges  his  injuries 
with  benefits,"  and  Confucius  found  in  reci- 
procity the  true  rule  of  practice  for  every 
human  life.  One  will  find  the  most  beautiful 
moral  maxims  in  the  writings  of  Mencius,  who 
is  regarded  by  the  Chinese  as  a  philosopher, 
second  only  to  Confucius.  y£schylus,  Sophocles 
100 


MORALS 

and  Euripides,  Plato  and  Aristotle  have  been 
Christian,  no  less  than  pagan,  teachers. 

There  is  in  Christian  morality  nothing  more 
elevated  than  the  summits  of  pagan  morality. 
To  say  that  "It  is  peculiar  of  man  to  love  even 
those  who  do  wrong"  sounds  like  Christian 
teaching,  and  it  is,  but  it  was  Marcus  Aurelius 
who  wrote  the  sentence.  The  ideal  for  the 
philosopher,  according  to  Epictetus,  is  no  less 
Christian  in  its  intent.  "A  philosopher  when 
smitten,"  he  said,  "must  love  those  who  smite 
him,  as  if  he  were  the  father,  the  brother,  of 
all  men."  And  Plutarch  holds  that  we  should 
sympathise  with  our  enemies  in  their  afflictions 
and  aid  their  needs.  If  it  be  said  that  the 
pagans  did  not  live  up  to  these  lofty  ideals,  it 
is  sufficient  to  say  in  reply  that  they  lived  up  to 
them  quite  as  well  and  closely  as  Christians 
live  up  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  the 
other  teachings  of  Jesus. 

Xenophon  tells  the  story  of  an  old  Armenian 
unjustly  condemned  to  death  by  order  of  a 
Persian  king,  who  urged  that  the  king  be  for- 
given, even  as  Jesus  prayed,  while  on  the 
Cross,  that  his  murderers  might  be  forgiven. 
The  name  of  Jesus  has  come  down  to  us,  while 
the  name  of  the  old  Armenian  has  not,  but 
101 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

suffering  as  foreign  to  himself?  This  suffering 
is  what  distinguishes  us  from  brutes."  Cicero 
declared  that  "Nature  has  inclined  us  to  love 
men,  and  this  is  the  foundation  of  the  law," 
while  Seneca  wrote,  "We  are  members  of  one 
great  body.  Nature  planted  in  us  a  mutual 
love,  and  fitted  us  for  social  life.  We  must 
consider  that  we  were  born  for  the  good  of 
the  whole."  "Love  mankind,"  said  Marcus 
Aurelius,  and  Epictetus  held  that  "The  uni- 
verse is  but  one  great  city,  full  of  beloved  ones, 
divine  and  human,  by  nature  endeared  to  each 
other."  Plato  taught  that  it  was  never  right 
to  return  an  injury,  and  Cleobulus  wrote,  "We 
should  do  good  to  our  enemy  and  make  him 
our  friend."  Hardly  less  emphatic  was  Va- 
lerius Maximus,  who  said,  "It  is  more  beauti- 
ful to  overcome  injury  by  the  power  of  kind- 
ness, than  to  oppose  to  it  the  obstinacy  of 
hatred."  The  Chinese  Philosopher,  Lao-tse, 
held  that  "The  wise  man  avenges  his  injuries 
with  benefits,"  and  Confucius  found  in  reci- 
procity the  true  rule  of  practice  for  every 
human  life.  One  will  find  the  most  beautiful 
moral  maxims  in  the  writings  of  Mencius,  who 
is  regarded  by  the  Chinese  as  a  philosopher, 
second  only  to  Confucius.  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles 
100 


MORALS 

and  Euripides,  Plato  and  Aristotle  have  been 
Christian,  no  less  than  pagan,  teachers. 

There  is  in  Christian  morality  nothing  more 
elevated  than  the  summits  of  pagan  morality. 
To  say  that  "It  is  peculiar  of  man  to  love  even 
those  who  do  wrong"  sounds  like  Christian 
teaching,  and  it  is,  but  it  was  Marcus  Aurelius 
who  wrote  the  sentence.  The  ideal  for  the 
philosopher,  according  to  Epictetus,  is  no  less 
Christian  in  its  intent.  "A  philosopher  when 
smitten,"  he  said,  "must  love  those  who  smite 
him,  as  if  he  were  the  father,  ths  brother,  of 
all  men."  And  Plutarch  holds  that  we  should 
sympathise  with  our  enemies  in  their  afflictions 
and  aid  their  needs.  If  it  be  said  that  the 
pagans  did  not  live  up  to  these  lofty  ideals,  it 
is  sufficient  to  say  in  reply  that  they  lived  up  to 
them  quite  as  well  and  closely  as  Christians 
live  up  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  the 
other  teachings  of  Jesus. 

Xenophon  tells  the  story  of  an  old  Armenian 
unjustly  condemned  to  death  by  order  of  a 
Persian  king,  who  urged  that  the  king  be  for- 
given, even  as  Jesus  prayed,  while  on  the 
Cross,  that  his  murderers  might  be  forgiven. 
The  name  of  Jesus  has  come  down  to  us,  while 
the  name  of  die  old  Armenian  has  not,  but 
101 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

and  did  drink  all  the  young  bloods  of  Athens 
under  the  table.  To  enjoy  the  earth  in  hearty 
and  honest  fashion  seems  a  sin  to  vinegar- 
faced  moralists,  but  why  should  one  hold  a 
vinegar-faced  moralist  in  peculiar  reverence? 
To  make  oneself  disagreeable  is  not  quite  the 
same  thing  as  to  make  oneself  virtuous,  and 
Diogenes  with  his  lantern,  searching  all  Athens 
to  find  an  honest  man,  might  have  been  com- 
pelled to  blush,  if  some  one  had  taken  the 
lantern  from  his  hand,  and  held  it  full  to  his 
face.  If  Diogenes  had  been  quite  as  virtuous 
as  he  professed  to  be,  I  fancy  that  he  would 
have  abstained  from  his  weary  tramps,  and 
kept  to  his  tub,  rich  in  the  peace  of  self-con- 
tentment. Why,  indeed,  should  any  of  us  be 
so  curious  of  our  fellow's  habits,  unless  we  de- 
sire to  adopt  them  as  our  own?  Why  concern 
ourselves  with  what  another  mortal  eats  or 
drinks,  or  how  he  passes  his  time,  unless  we 
desire  to  share  his  food  and  liquids,  or  to  abide 
in  his  presence?  There  is  too  much  squeam- 
ishness  in  our  Morals.  It  is  permissible  in  the 
woods  and  fields  for  one  to  laugh  at  much  of 
what  goes  by  the  name  of  moral  lore.  The 
boys  who  swim  in  the  pool  do  not  consult  An- 
thony Comstock  in  regard  to  the  propriety  of 
104 


MORALS 

wearing  bathing-suits,  but,  with  a  healthy  anti- 
nomianism,  plunge  in  nudely,  and  enjoy  the 
water  as  it  splashes  musically  around  them. 
The  person  who  is  guiltless  of  nightshirt  or 
pajamas  in  the  privacy  of  his  chamber  is  not 
necessarily  an  enemy  of  civic,  or  any  other 
form,  of  righteousness.  It  may  shock  an 
orthodox  Jew  to  see  one  eating  roast  pork, 
but,  after  all,  nobody  need  be  an  orthodox 
Jew.  Millions  of  Jews  have  reformed,  and, 
after  they  have  reformed  to  the  extent  of  en- 
joying a  little  ham,  they  become  better  neigh- 
bors, and  more  agreeable  in  every  way.  Bac- 
chus is  reputed,  in  these  latter  days,  to  be  a 
very  disreputable  kind  of  god,  and  I  dare  say 
he  is,  but  candor  compels  the  admission  that  I 
much  prefer  his  society  to  the  society  of  his 
most  violent  enemies.  His  jolly  nature,  at 
least,  has  power  to  keep  me  in  good  humor, 
which  is  more  than  I  can  say  for  ninety-nine 
per  cent,  of  all  the  soi-disant  apostles  of  moral- 
ity and  reform  who  cross  my  path. 

Those  who  think  it  wicked  for  the  citizens 
of  the  world  to  enjoy  themselves  are  anach- 
ronisms. The  Puritan  and  the  Philistine  are 
moral  humbugs.  No  doubt  they  often  deceive 
themselves,  but  there  is  no  form  of  deception 
105 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

which  is  quite  so  harmful  as  self-deception.  A 
man  may  deceive  others,  and  preserve  a  kind 
of  half-sanity.  But  when  a  man  deceives  him- 
self, his  sanity  is  completely  gone.  Those  who 
have  regarded  Shakespeare  and  Whitman,  and 
a  thousand  other  writers,  as  immoral  have 
been  suffering  from  a  mental  blindness  which 
they  fondly  mistook  for  supernatural  insight. 
No  writer  who  speaks  out  of  the  depths  of 
himself  is  ever  immoral  in  the  larger  sense. 
He  may  be  immoral  to  his  age,  but  he  will  be 
moral  to  the  enlightened  of  all  ages.  There 
is  nothing  indecent  in  honest  nudity,  Anthony 
Comstock  and  his  ilk  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing. Renan  said  that  Jesus  had  a  divine 
incapacity  for  seeing  evil.  That  to  me  is  the 
most  convincing  evidence  of  his  divinity.  The 
real  evil  of  the  world  Jesus  saw  more  clearly 
than  most  people  see  it,  for  he  saw  the  evil  of 
the  hard,  cold,  unforgiving  spirit,  of  those  who 
are  selfish,  and  of  those  who  would  have 
stoned  to  her  death  the  poor,  trembling  woman 
who  had  done  no  more  than  her  accusers  had 
often  longed  to  do,  and  were  doubtless  guilty 
of  doing;  but  it  is  true  that  Jesus  did  not  see 
evil  where  an  Anthony  Comstock  would  see  it, 
and  every  other  shallow  little  Puritan  and 
106 


MORALS 

Philistine.  There  was  the  same  kind  of 
healthy  antinomianism  in  Jesus  that  one  finds 
in  youth,  the  same  kind  of  healthy  antinomian- 
ism, let  me  add,  that  one  finds  in  all  persons 
who  are  worth  while.  Men  have  often  passed 
in  their  communities  as  paragons  of  morality 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  they  were,  in 
one  way  or  another,  physiologically  deficient. 
A  sluggish  circulation  of  the  blood,  an  anaemic 
brain,  a  shrunken  organ,  have  more  than  once 
given  an  individual  his  passport  to  the  heaven 
of  the  saints.  It  is  the  person  who  suffers 
from  a  weak  stomach  that  is  always  most 
shocked  by  the  grossness  of  the  normal  appe- 
tite. It  is  he  who  is  not  the  full  sexual  equiva- 
lent of  a  man  who  is  most  certain  to  deplore 
the  sexual  depravity  of  the  world.  More  than 
one  system  of  philosophy,  more  than  one  code 
of  morals,  have  been  evolved  from  those 
whose  congenital  physiologic  incapacity  suc- 
ceeded in  passing  among  the  dunderheads  of 
the  time  as  superior  moral  fibre.  Let  us  learn 
to  look  facts  in  the  face;  let  us  learn  to  be 
consistent,  and  no  longer  be  avaricious  of  de- 
sire to  impose  on  others,  or  be  imposed  upon. 
If  there  be  something  wrong  with  our  physi- 
ologies, or  with  our  psychologies,  we  may  right- 
107 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

fully  keep  the  fact  to  ourselves,  although  it 
were  better  to  consult  a  physician;  but  as  we 
value  truth,  as  we  honor  integrity,  as  we  prize 
honesty,  let  us  not  attempt  to  build  up  a  moral 
philosophy  on  the  foundation  of  our  physio- 
logical, or  psychological,  deficiencies.  Those 
who  desire  that  others  should  be  weak,  because 
they  are  weak,  are  common  enough,  in  all  con- 
science, but  they  ought  to  be  seen  for  what 
they  are, — the  unclean  beasts  of  the  great  eth- 
ical desert. 

I  will  admit  that  it  is  not  quite  true  to  say 
that  to  the  pure  all  things  are  pure.  There 
are  attitudes  of  mind,  there  are  deeds  per- 
formed, that  are  indecent — that  is,  unbecom- 
ing. But  that  which  makes  an  attitude  or  act 
indecent  is  the  motive  that  lies  behind  it.  The 
honest  writer  is  never  indecent,  he  is  never 
impure,  no  matter  what  may  be  his  theme. 
All  that  may  justly  be  branded  as  indecent 
in  human  life,  whether  of  doer  or  thinker,  will 
be  found  to  be  based  either  on  thoughtlessness 
or  sheer  dishonesty — principally  the  latter. 
He  who  lives  thoughtfully  and  honestly  is 
never  immoral  in  the  true  sense.  And  honesty 
is  the  first  essential.  The  play  which  is  truly 
salacious,  and  not  falsely  so-called,  is  the  dis- 
108 


MORALS 

honest  play.  All  impurity  in  what  passes  for 
art  is  simply  an  expression  of  intellectual  dis- 
honesty. The  great  playwright,  the  great  mas- 
ter of  fiction,  the  great  artist  in  every  field  is 
one  who  sees  life  steadily  and  sees  it  whole; 
he  is  one  who  endeavors  manfully  to  see  life 
as  it  is,  or  as  it  ought  to  be,  and  in  play,  novel, 
or  other  artistic  product,  reports  the  vision  of 
his  entire  self.  The  dishonest  writer,  or  ar- 
tist, on  the  other  hand,  does  not  report  the 
vision  of  his  entire  self.  He  gives  us  merely 
a  fragment  thereof,  a  fragment  which  he  has 
wilfully  divorced  from  the  rest  of  reality. 
Homer  knew  quite  as  well  as  any  modern  psy- 
chologist that  one  sees  with  the  eyes  of  the 
mind,  and  not  merely  by  means  of  the  physical 
organs  of  sight.  Now  all  things  are  beautiful, 
and  should  be  of  good  report,  when  in  their 
proper  places.  The  hand  or  the  leg  is  no  less 
beautiful  than  the  head,  when  joined  to  the 
body  to  which  it  belongs;  it  is  gruesome  when 
severed  from  the  body.  The  evil-minded  per- 
son is  the  one  who  bids  us  view  the  severed 
members.  I  have  no  respect  for  fig-leaf  mor- 
ality. There  is  no  organ  of  the  living  body, 
male  or  female,  which  offends  my  sense  of 
modesty;  on  the  contrary,  I  possess  a  keen  en* 
109 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

joyment  of  all  anatomical  facts.  But  I  see 
clearly  that,  when  the  whole  structure  of  the 
body  is  lost  sight  of  in  a  naive  admiration  of 
a  part,  there  is  something  unwholesome  in  the 
rapture.  One  hears  of  leg-shows,  and  in  the 
spectacle  of  a  leg-show,  the  degradation  of  our 
modern  stage  looms  with  startling  distinctness. 
Is  woman  nothing  more  than  the  nether  limbs 
of  her  body?  Doubtless  all  human  legs  are 
entitled  to  friendly  regard,  and  even  respect- 
ful veneration.  There  is  no  indecency  in  any 
anatomical  fact  and  to  see  indecency  in  any  is 
to  reveal  a  crude  indecency  in  the  beholder. 
Mrs.  Grundy  is  not  a  moral  philosopher;  she 
is  indeed  in  no  noble  sense  moral  at  all,  but 
merely  the  ugliest  of  old  hags,  the  dirtiest  and 
most  contemptible  of  all  mortals,  always  bar- 
ring the  weaklings  of  the  dust  who  bow  low  in 
her  presence,  and  quote  her  as  an  authority 
upon  moral  questions ;  no  sound  moral  philoso- 
phy can  ever  come  from  a  person  who  mistakes 
moral  dyspepsia  for  spiritual  integrity;  but  it 
can  hardly  be  denied  that  leg-worshippers,  and 
all  who  forsake  the  whole  in  order  to  give 
undivided  attention  to  a  part,  are  to  some  ex- 
tent responsible  for  the  excesses  of  the  Puritan 
temper,  and  for  that  temper  itself.  Weakness 
110 


MORALS 

is  weakness,  whether  it  be  of  the  Mrs.  Grundys 
of  both  sexes,  or  of  those  whom  the  Mrs. 
Grundys  of  both  sexes  revile. 

One  must,  of  course,  rise  superior  to  Mrs. 
Grundyism.  Fig-leaf  morality,  the  morality 
of  the  closed  eyes  and  ears,  has  long  raised 
the  devil  of  a  clatter  among  us,  and  is  still, 
Heaven  knows,  only  too  much  in  evidence.  It 
fears  the  naked  truth  as  it  fears  the  naked 
body,  and  the  naked-everything-else.  It  prides 
itself  on  the  wreckage  of  literature  and  of 
every  form  of  art,  that  has  been  brought  about 
through  its  wild  crusading  spirit.  The  Philis- 
tine does  not  think  that  his  day  has  been  well 
spent,  unless  he  has  covered  a  statue  or  a 
painting,  burned  a  book,  or  commanded  music 
to  be  silent.  He  goes  just  as  far  as  society 
will  allow  him  to  go.  The  statue  that  he  now 
drapes,  he  once  smashed;  the  painting  that  he 
now  consents  to  let  hang  in  some  dark  corner 
of  a  gallery,  he  once  slit;  the  book  that  comes 
from  the  publisher's  shop  is  now  received  by 
him,  as  a  rule,  with  nothing  worse  than  a  howl 
of  impotent  rage;  he  may  no  longer  have  his 
way  with  music.  And  yet  nothing  is  quite  safe, 
even  yet.  Great  books  are  still  frequently 
barred  from  libraries  through  his  influence; 
111 


THE    SPIRIT    OF    LIFE 

they  are  still  refused  circulation  through  the 
mails.  It  is  dangerous,  even  to-day,  for  book- 
stalls to  expose  for  sale  the  writings  of  Rabe- 
lais and  Boccaccio,  or  Burton's  unexpurgated 
Arabian  Nights.  Great  works  of  literature, 
when  placed  in  schoolrooms,  are  mutilated. 
Havelock  Ellis  and  Raffalovich,  and  many  an- 
other writer  dealing  with  the  psychology  of 
sex,  yet  belong  to  the  Philistines'  taboo.  A 
sorry  spectacle  for  gods  and  men  is  our  con- 
temporary Puritanism.  Philistinism — enmity 
to  the  light — is  still  its  soul. 

I  do  not  wonder  that  the  word  Morals  has 
for  many  ears  a  harsh  sound.  It  used  to  have 
for  mine.  The  majesty  of  the  ethical  con- 
sciousness was  almost  blotted  out  of  my  vision 
by  the  clouds  with  which  the  Puritan  spirit  en- 
veloped it,  even  as  boys  blot  out  the  sun  with 
the  dust  which  they  raise  on  a  Summer's  day. 
I  had  to  get  away  from  all  the  mad  Philistines 
in  order  to  see  things  as  they  are.  The  moral 
law  is  poetry  and  music,  but  when  I  listened 
to  the  discourses  of  Puritan  and  Philistine — 
moral  discourses  they  called  them — their  words 
seemed  to  me  cacophonous,  the  vilest  and  most 
wretched  concatenation  of  ear-splitting  sounds 
that  Bedlam  had  it  in  its  power  to  evoke.  I 
112 


MORALS 

could  not  but  feel  the  contrast  between  the 
jangling  discords  of  Philistine  and  Puritan 
morality,  and  the  melody  of  the  words  which 
Shakespeare  made  Lorenzo  pour  into  the  ear 
of  Jessica,  in  that  famous  scene  in  the  Mer- 
chant of  Venice,  after  he  has  run  away  with 
the  daughter  of  Shylock. 

"How  sweet  the  moonlight  sleeps  upon  this  bank. 

Here  will  we  sit,  and  let  the  sounds  of  music 

Creep  in  our  ears;    soft  stillness  and  the  night 

Become  the  touches  of  sweet  harmony. 

Sit  Jessica :    Look !    how  the  floor  of  heaven 

Is  thick  inlaid  with  patines  of  bright  gold; 

There's  not  the  smallest  orb  which  thou  beholdest, 

But  in  his  motion  like  an  angel  sings, 

Still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubins: 

Such  harmony  is  in  immortal  souls; 

But.  whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 

Doth  grossly  close  us  in,  we  cannot  hear  it." 

I  was  born  in  a  community  where  an  elope- 
ment similar  to  the  one  that  occurred  between 
Lorenzo  and  Jessica  would  have  been  provoca- 
tive of  a  vast  amount  of  scandal.  It  would 
have  been  regarded  as  a  very  unholy,  a  very 
wicked,  thing.  But  the  poetry  and  the  music 
of  these  lines  found  me,  and  ever  since  they 
found  me  I  have  been  forced  to  admit  that 
118 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

not  until  people  become  immune  to  the  moral 
notions  of  their  community's  Scribes  and 
Pharisees,  their  Puritans  and  Philistines,  do 
the  music  and  poetry  of  life  steal  into  their 
souls.  Byron's  poetry,  and  Shelley's  poetry, 
we  are  told,  are  the  poetry  of  revolt.  But  all 
poetry  is  a  revolt  against  the  conventional  in 
life  and  morals.  All  poetry  is  a  protest  against 
Philistinism  and  a  shallow  Puritanism.  John 
Milton  would  have  shocked  Cotton  Mather  al- 
most as  much  as  Shakespeare  did,  if  he  had 
possessed  the  wit  really  to  understand  him. 
Milton  a  Puritan!  Of  the  nobler  sort,  yes, 
but  not  of  the  degenerate  variety  which  thrived 
around  Massachusetts  Bay,  having  learned 
how  to  exist  with  its  blood  congealed  in  its 
veins.  Cotton  Mather's  poet  was  not  Milton, 
but  Michael  Wigglesworth,  the  author  of  that 
gloomy  epic,  The  Day  of  Doom,  in  which  chil- 
dren were  pictured  as  dwelling  in  the  easiest 
abodes  of  Hell.  Of  course,  Wigglesworth  was 
no  real  poet;  a  man  cannot  be  a  real  poet 
after  he  has  torn  his  life  up  by  the  roots. 
There  must  be  some  conventional  immorality 
in  a  man  before  the  Muse  will  whisper  her  in- 
spiration to  him;  before  the  meaning  of  either 
Apollo  or  Christ  will  dawn  in  his  mind. 
114 


MORALS 

The  highest  morality  is  never  conventional. 
It  is  never  Puritan;  it  is  never  Philistine.  For 
the  highest  morality  has  to  bid  defiance  to  cus- 
tom in  order  to  get  the  sweetness  of  poetry  and 
music  into  life.  There  is  little  of  this  kind  of 
morality  in  the  statute-book,  for  those  who 
make  the  laws  are  seldom  ideal  legislators  or 
ideal  men.  The  moral  man  is  the  man  who 
is  right  when  God  measures  him,  not  when  his 
neighbors  measure  him.  A  great  soul  will  al- 
ways seem  immoral  to  the  bulk  of  his  con- 
temporaries, if  they  succeed  in  probing  into  his 
essence.  There  would  have  been  no  room  in 
New  England  for  Goethe,  or  Robert  Burns. 
If  Coleridge  had  lived  in  Boston,  there  would 
have  been  more  gossip  over  his  strange  habits 
than  discussion  of  his  verse.  Thoreau  was  not 
regarded  as  respectable  by  the  good  people  of 
Concord.  Both  he  and  Alcott  were  regarded 
as  no  better  than  common  loafers.  And  it  is 
difficult  to  resist  the  impression  that  Concord 
would  have  been  quite  shocked  out  of  its  wits, 
if  the  real  meaning  of  Emerson's  words  had 
penetrated  to  the  ear  of  the  common  under- 
standing. The  prophet  of  the  Over-Soul  was 
commended  by  his  fellow-townsmen  chiefly  be- 
cause he  revealed  to  them  a  capacity  for  earn- 
115 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

ing  money  enough  to  pay  the  butcher  and 
baker  and  candlestick-maker,  men  who  prized 
his  money  far  more  than  they  did  his  Trans- 
cendentalism. What  a  weird  thing,  indeed,  is 
society  at  any  given  moment  of  time !  When- 
ever a  genius  is  born  to  us,  men's  first  thought 
is  how  much  money  will  be  required  to  enlarge 
the  gaols.  Of  course,  Jesus  was  crucified. 
Whenever  God  appears  in  the  flesh,  and  genius 
is  God  appearing  in  the  flesh,  he  is  always 
crucified.  The  crucifixion  of  Jesus  was  the 
final  revelation  to  Humanity  of  the  real  nature 
of  the  prophet  and  poet  of  Galilee.  Jesus  was 
moral,  but  his  morality  was  not  the  morality  of 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees.  It  was  not  Puritan. 
It  was  not  Philistine.  It  was  the  morality  of 
God. 

The  hero  who  died  on  Golgotha  was  one  of 
the  greatest  of  poets.  Morality  is  only  beauti- 
ful living.  When  one  knows  how  to  live  beau- 
tifully, one  is  moral.  And  I  venture  to  express 
the  somewhat  heretical  belief  that  most  people 
do  live  about  as  well  as  they  are  permitted  to 
live.  It  may  be  said,  in  reply,  that  most  people 
do  not  live  up  to  their  own  precepts,  and  that 
this  fact  proves  them  to  be  hypocrites.  But 
the  truth  is  that  comparatively  few  people 
116 


MORALS 

understand  the  precepts  that  wag  their  tongues. 
Even  the  greatest  minds  do  not  always  possess 
clear  vision.  When  Emerson  visited  Thoreau 
in  the  Concord  gaol,  where  the  latter  was  lan- 
guishing for  refusing  to  pay  his  taxes,  he  said, 
"Henry,  why  are  you  here?"  to  which  Thoreau 
replied,  "Waldo,  why  are  you  not  here?" 
Both  Emerson  and  Thoreau  had  taught  the 
same  doctrine  in  regard  to  the  payment  of 
taxes,  and  Thoreau  thought  that  Emerson 
ought  to  have  been  as  consistent  as  himself, 
and  gone  to  gaol.  Well,  I  think  so,  too,  but 
Emerson  loved  the  poetry  of  an  idea  better 
than  the  sordidness  of  Thoreau's  fact.  And 
with  lesser  minds,  the  moral  precepts  which 
they  utter  are  no  more  real  to  them  than  are 
the  hymns  which  the  lumberjacks  bawl  when  a 
preacher  calls  at  the  camp.  A  man  can  sing 
"Jesus  lover  of  my  soul,"  although  he  has 
never  given  five  minutes*  thought  in  all  his  life 
to  the  question  whether  he  has  a  soul  or  not, 
or  whether  his  soul,  if  he  have  one,  bears  any 
relation  to  the  Xazarene.  Persons  often  utter 
moral  precepts  and  sing  hymns  to  pass  away 
the  time.  They  mean  nothing  in  particular  by 
doing  either.  The  deeds  of  an  individual  give 
the  clue  to  his  real  character.  That  which  one 
117 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

thinks  in  his  heart,  that  is  what  one  tries  to  do. 
But  the  pressure  of  the  environment  is  strong, 
and  what  one  really  thinks  in  his  heart  is  usually 
what  one's  neighbors  are  thinking  in  their 
hearts.  One  quotes  the  great  precepts  of  the 
moral  philosophers  very  much  as  a  poll-parrot 
quotes  all  that  he  hears,  but  neither  the  average 
individual  nor  the  poll-parrot  is  much  edified 
by  the  words  that  cross  their  lips.  The  really 
difficult,  and  all  but  impossible,  thing  for  most 
people  is  to  desire  a  righteousness  that  shall 
exceed  the  righteousness  of  those  by  whom 
they  are  surrounded.  To  be  as  good  as  one's 
neighbors,  but  no  better,  is  the  ideal  that  takes 
root  in  the  average  mind.  It  is  a  very  safe 
ideal,  for  the  majority  love  high  excellence  no 
better  than  they  love  the  worst  forms  of  crimi- 
nality. To  be  a  mediocrity  in  the  field  of 
moral  endeavor,  this  is  the  desire  of  the  aver- 
age citizen;  that  he  shall  be  such  a  mediocrity 
is  the  desire  of  the  community  that  rears  him. 
One's  conduct  depends  upon  the  game  that 
the  community  plays  with  one's  ideal.  The 
sophisticated  poor  man  may  learn  to  think  that 
the  game  is  not  worth  the  candle,  and  refuse 
to  play  it  according  to  the  rules.  The  criminal 
is  born  of  this  despair,  and  perhaps  a  charitable 
118 


MORALS 

person  will  not  feel  like  blaming  him  too  se- 
verely. I  confess  to  some  feeling  of  sympathy 
for  him.  It  is  well  for  the  progress  of  the 
world  that  men  often  refuse  to  be  ultra-moral. 
The  only  way  to  obtain  an  improvement  of 
evil  conditions  is  to  rebel  against  the  existing 
order.  The  poor  man  of  Robert  Burns'  day 
looked  forward  to  death  with  a  sense  of  relief. 

"O  Death,  the  poor  man's  dearest  friend — 
The  kindest  and  the  best. 
Welcome  the  hour  my  aged  limbs 
Are  laid  with  thee  at  rest. 
The  great,  the  wealthy,  fear  thy  blow, 
From  pomp  and  pleasure  torn; 
But,  oh,  a  blest  relief  to  those 
That  weary-laden  mourn." 

These  lines  of  Robert  Burns  have  for  our  time 
an  ancient  look.  To-day  the  poor  man  does 
not  look  to  death  for  relief  from  his  woes,  but 
he  joins  a  labor  union,  or  becomes  a  Socialist, 
or,  perhaps,  an  Anarchist.  He  is  not  afraid 
to  go  out  on  a  strike,  and,  if  his  temper  be  hot, 
he  may  throw  stones  and  destroy  his  employer's 
property.  Very  wicked  this,  many  folks  say, 
and  very  wicked  it  may  be,  but  even  wicked- 
ness may  find  in  conditions  a  partial  justifica- 
tion for  itself.  If  the  reader  considers  only  the 
119 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

guillotine  and  the  massacres,  the  story  of  the 
French  Revolution  will  not  make  very  pleasant 
reading.  But  when  he  learns  how  the  poor  suf- 
fered, through  the  tyranny  of  those  who  tow- 
ered for  centuries  above  them,  his  reflections 
'  are  not  likely  to  be  tinged  with  so  much  regret, 
as  he  turns  over  many  a  sanguinary  page.  If 
those  in  power  will  not  do  justly  by  those  be- 
neath them  in  social  position,  then  it  is  highly 
advisable  that  they  get  a  dose  of  their  own 
bitterest  medicine.  There  are  times  when  we 
should  be  mild  and  turn  the  other  cheek  to  the 
smiter,  but  ninety-nine  times  out  of  a  hundred, 
it  is  better  that  the  smiter  get  well-smitten  in 
return.  For,  after  he  has  received  his  punish- 
ment, he  is  not  likely  to  find  smiting  such 
pleasant  exercise  for  his  animal  spirits.  Those 
animal  spirits,  indeed,  will  have  received  a 
much-needed  chastening. 

I  have  no  respect  for  the  notion,  so  popular 
among  us  to-day,  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  evil.  That  doctrine  may,  or  may  not,  be 
a  truth  of  metaphysics.  But  Humanity  cannot 
live  on  metaphysics,  in  this  gross  earth  of  ours. 
Here  actuality  means  more  than  metaphysical 
reality.  Pain  may  not  be  real,  but  it  is  actual, 
and  none  but  a  fool  will  deny  it.  There  is 
120 


MORALS 

evil  in  the  world.  There  is  vastly  more  evil 
than  good.  The  essence  of  life,  as  mortals 
know  it,  is  a  conflict  between  different  ideals; 
we  are  in  the  midst  of 

"Right  and  wrong 
Between  whose  endless  jar  justice  resides." 

Every  step  in  advance  that  the  race  has  taken, 
and  every  step  that  it  will  take  in  advance  in 
the  future,  has  been,  and  will  be,  fought  by 
forces  that  desired  to  keep  the  human  mind 
back.  Individually  and  collectively  alike, 
progress  means  warfare  between  moral  con- 
ceptions, whose  natures  are  irreconcilable. 
There  is  indeed  no  Absolute  Morality  in  the 
world  to  command  our  allegiance.  There  are 
millions  of  individual  moralities,  for  every  in- 
dividual is  a  law  unto  himself,  and  the  morals 
of  the  crowd  are  nothing  more  than  customs 
which  have  grown  up  slowly,  and  which  the 
mass  would  force  upon  the  individual  as  habits 
to  be  honored  and  observed.  Some  of  these 
habits — most  of  them,  indeed — we  have  in- 
herited, others  are  imbibed  from  a  growing 
sentiment  of  environment,  others  still  are 
purely  individual,  born  of  solitary  meditation 
and  unique  experience.  Every  person  has  his 
121 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

private  moral  code,  not  all  of  which  has  been 
inspired  from  Sinai,  or  other  sacred  peak.  In 
the  clash  of  code  against  code,  it  cannot  justly 
be  claimed  that  all  right  is  ever  found  upon 
one  side  alone.  The  Southerner  who  believed 
that  slavery  was  a  divine  institution,  and  the 
Northerner  who  believed  that  slavery  was  an 
abomination,  could  both  present  very  effective 
arguments  for  their  points  of  view.  There 
was  right  upon  both  sides;  there  was  wrong 
upon  both.  And  so  has  it  ever  been,  and  so 
will  it  ever  be,  throughout  the  course  of  human 
events.  Let  us  beware  how  we  stigmatize  the 
actions  of  our  opponents!  An  American  may 
rejoice,  and  should  rejoice,  in  the  success  of 
Washington  in  the  Revolution  of  1776,  but  he 
who  tries  to  asperse  the  motives  of  the  Loyal- 
ists, who  refused  to  rebel  against  King  George 
and  the  mother  country,  does  violence  to  the 
facts,  for  they  were  not  the  vile  traitors  to 
their  country  that  shallow  American  historians 
have  loved  to  portray  them.  Patriotism  would 
have  it  so,  but  impartial  investigations  have 
shown  that  the  Loyalists  were  often  of  the 
highest  type  of  character,  while  many  a  patriot 
of  the  day  was  little  better  than  a  rowdy.  All 
persons  are  entitled  to  justice,  and  there  is 
188 


MORALS 

grave  danger  in  dividing  them  into  sheep  and 
goats,  because  closest  inspection  will  often  fail 
to  reveal  which  is  which,  and,  besides,  individ- 
uals will  be  found  changing  places  from  day  to 
day.  The  immoral  of  yesterday  are  the  moral 
of  to-day,  and  the  moral  of  to-day  will  be  the 
immoral  of  to-morrow.  Morality  often  ap- 
pears to  be  nothing  more  than  a  will-o'-the- 
wisp. 

A  will-o'-the-wisp  I  fancy  that  morality  al- 
ways is.  A  virtue  is.  only  some  old  sin  that 
has  become  common.  A  sin  is  a  virtue  that 
has  become  obsolete  in  good  society.  What 
are  we  to  do?  It  was  not  a  crime  to  steal  in 
ancient  Sparta,  if  one  could  steal  without  being 
detected;  it  was  held  to  be  a  virtue  rather, 
for  stealing  sharpened  the  wit  so  useful  in  war- 
fare. But  I  may  not  steal  that  my  wit  may  be 
sharpened,  and  what  wit-sharpener  can  I  find 
to  take  its  place?  Cultured  Athens  smiled 
upon  practices,  and  believed  them  half-divine, 
or  wholly  so,  that  in  subsequent  years  caused 
men  to  be  sent  to  the  flames,  the  gallows  and 
life-imprisonment.  Can  it  be  that  a  virtue  of 
ancient  Athens  is  a  sin  in  America  or  England? 
By  the  standard  of  morals  now  counted  ortho- 
dox a  virtue  of  an  elder  period  has  most  as- 
123 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

suredly  become  a  sin  of  the  present.  Painful 
as  the  reflection  must  be  to  one  who  knows  that 
his  debt  to  the  Greek  classics  is  a  debt  greater 
than  he  will  ever  be  able  to  pay,  there  is  no 
gainsaying  the  fact  that  the  greatest  of  the 
ancient  poets  and  philosophers  and  artists 
would  be  regarded  to-day  as  criminals  in  Lon- 
don and  New  York.  And  yet  the  distance  be- 
tween the  Age  of  Pericles  and  now  is  not  as 
great  as  some  may  fondly  imagine.  Did  I 
speak  of  a  sin  as  a  former  virtue  which  had 
become  obsolete  in  good  society?  Surely  I  was 
jesting.  There  is  nothing  which  ever  was  that 
is  obsolete  in  the  world.  There  is  no  good 
society.  We  prate  of  evolution;  evolution  is 
more  than  half  a  myth.  All  the  virtues  are 
hoary  with  age.  All  the  sins  find  a  happy 
hunting  ground  in  the  modern  world.  There 
is  not  a  vice  known  to  ancient  Egypt  or  Babylon 
that  has  been  stamped  out.  All  the  sleuths 
are  busy  still.  The  face  of  the  Devil  is  no 
whiter  to-day  than  it  was  six  thousand  years 
ago,  nor  any  blacker.  At  his  best,  the  archfiend 
of  our  mythology  has  always  been  a  gentleman; 
at  his  worst,  he  has  always  been  very  much 
like  the  rest  of  us.  Genial  to  a  fault,  I  find 
him  in  every  society,  good  or  bad,  that  I  enter, 


MORALS 

shaking  hands  with  the  aristocratic  few,  or  the 
democratic  many,  with  the  most  serene  and  im- 
perturbable impartiality,  and  doubtless  he  will 
be  successful  in  preserving  his  unique  character 
to  the  end  of  time. 

Perhaps  the  reader  who  has  followed  me 
thus  far  will  fancy  that  I  am  jesting  now. 
If  so,  let  me  hasten  to  assure  him  that  I  was 
never  more  serious.  Do  not  despise  me  for 
my  good-natured  attitude,  for  there  is  nothing 
so  difficult  to  acquire !  It  is  easy  to  abuse 
everybody,  and  everything.  When  it  serves 
my  purpose,  I  am  an  adept  at  that  sort  of 
thing  myself,  and  there  are  occasions  when  in- 
vective is  a  very  effective  weapon.  Still  it  is 
not  a  magnet  to  draw  the  affections  of  man- 
kind to  oneself,  and  there  are  times  when  one 
desires  to  accomplish  that  end.  Within  the 
field  of  my  consciousness  I  behold  a  world  of 
men  and  women,  with  some  of  whom  I  would 
like  to  be  on  good  terms  all  of  the  time,  and 
with  all  of  whom  I  would  like  to  be  on  good 
terms  some  of  the  time.  At  this  particular 
moment  I  desire  to  be  on  good  terms  with 
them  all.  I  would  see  their  virtues  large,  and 
their  vices  small;  nay,  if  I  might,  by  some 
subtile  spiritual  chemistry,  work  the  miracle,  I 
125 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

would  occasionally  transform  the  mentalities  of 
mankind  so  that  these  apparent  vices  would  be 
as  resplendent  as  the  real  virtues.  Like  Whit- 
man, I  cry  out  to  be  relieved  of  distinctions. 
I  would  see  the  saints  and  sinners  as  much  alike 
in  their  features  as  are  the  peas  in  a  pod.  And 
they  are.  My  saints  live  only  in  my  creative 
imagination.  My  sinners  are  the  daily  compan- 
ions of  my  existence.  All  the  men  and  women  to 
whom  I  owe  pleasant  hours  are  sinners.  They 
have  written  the  books  that  I  read,  painted  the 
pictures  and  carved  the  statues  that  I  see,  and 
composed  the  music  that  I  hear.  When  my 
sorrows  seemed  greater  than  I  could  bear,  it 
was  they  who  brought  me  cheer.  I  have  en- 
joyed their  dinners;  I  have  thanked  them  when 
they  put  gold  in  my  empty  purse.  Sinners! 
What  does  it  matter  if  the  author  of  the 
Twenty-third  Psalm  committed  adultery,  if 
Lord  Bacon  took  bribes,  if  Shakespeare  got 
drunk?  Their  sins  have  all  passed  away,  and 
none  among  the  living  are  any  the  worse  be- 
cause they  were  committed;  but  the  Psalm,  the 
Essays  and  King  Lear  are  our  delight  forever. 
And  it  may  be  that  the  things  of  art,  of  litera- 
ture, and,  indeed,  all  of  the  inspirations  of 
life  that  we  most  prize  were  born,  and  continue 
126 


MORALS 

to  be  born,  out  of  human  sins  no  less  than 
human  virtues.  I  confess  that  I  have  some- 
times thought  that  virtue  alone  is  sterile,  and 
that  sin  alone  is  sterile,  but  that,  out  of  their 
indissoluble  union  in  the  flesh,  all  the  heroic 
deeds,  the  godlike  aspirations,  and  the  intellec- 
tual searchings  of  the  spirit  have  come. 

Like  my  brethren  of  a  sterner  temper,  I  am 
a  moralist,  for  the  germs  of  all  moralities  are 
in  my  blood.  There  is  probably  no  sin  that 
has  ever  been  committed  whose  germ  is  not 
to  be  found  somewhere  within  my  psychology; 
there  is  probably  no  virtue  whose  germ  is  not 
in  my  mind  also.  What  I  am,  I  am.  I  have 
no  apologies  to  make.  Do  I  indulge  in  sinful 
frolic?  When  the  fit  is  on  me  I  do.  But 
there  are  also  days  when  I  am  as  austere  as 
any  Puritan.  Then  I  am  anchored  fast  to  all 
the  moralities.  But  there  are  other  times  when 
I  must  laugh  at  all  the  sombre  virtues.  There 
is,  indeed,  a  ludicrous  side  to  them  all.  No 
man  is  consistent.  Life  is  not.  I  play  with 
words,  just  as  Humanity  has  always  played 
with  them.  I  contradict  myself,  when  the  time 
or  the  mood  calls  for  contradiction.  There 
is  no  fool  in  the  world  like  habit.  Millions 
call  themselves  moral,  because  they  move  in  a 
127 


THE   SPIRIT  OF    LIFE 

stupid  rut  from  which  they  have  not  the  wit 
to  emerge.  To  me  it  is  apparent  that  the  per- 
son who  always  observes  the  same  customs, 
day  after  day,  and  year  after  year,  is  no  wiser 
than  a  versifier  who,  after  writing  some  stanzas, 
should  rewrite  them  eternally,  with  never  the 
thought  of  a  fresh  inspiration,  or  an  individual 
who  had  become  so  enamored  of  one  viand 
that  he  would  never  eat  any  other.  One  may 
have  so  much  respect  for  Moses  as  to  have 
none  for  oneself.  It  is  easier,  of  course,  to 
accept  the  Decalogue  of  another  than  to  create 
a  Decalogue  for  oneself,  but  the  great  man  is 
one  who  is  never  weary  of  his  own  mental  ac- 
tivity. Moses  is  not  a  safe  teacher  for  an 
aspiring  generation.  To  accept  him  with  the 
heart  would  mean  the  destruction  of  sculpture, 
and  of  other  noble  things.  Morality  is  seldom 
an  art,  but  true  morality  always  is  an  art. 
Everything  should  be  an  art.  And,  to  be  an 
art,  a  thing  has  to  be  individual.  The  great 
moralists  of  all  ages  have  been  artists,  but 
their  less  enlightened  followers  have  stooped 
to  be  mere  artisans.  The  Master  always  pos- 
sesses a  freshness  that  gets  lost  in  the  disciple 
who  tries  to  walk  in  his  footsteps.  That  is  why 
a  great  sinner  like  Napoleon  is  admired  more 
128 


MORALS 

than  a  sickly  saint.  The  former  has  lived  from 
the  inspiration  found  within  himself;  the  latter 
has  tried  to  make  an  exotic  atmosphere  the 
breath  of  his  spiritual  nostrils.  There  are  sins 
that  attract,  just  as  there  are  virtues  that  repel. 
There  may  have  been  a  sinless  Buddha  once, 
but  what  avails  it,  if  his  sinlessness  brought  the 
annihilation  of  Nirvana?  A  virtue  which  has 
no  life  in  it  is  a  monstrosity.  A  sinless  being, 
one  who  had  reconciled  all  the  antinomies  of 
his  nature,  drunk  dry  all  the  wells  of  truth, 
and  digested  all  the  fruits  of  beauty  that  grow 
in  the  cosmic  orchards,  would  be  poor  com- 
pany for  a  live  man  or  a  live  god,  for  his  eyes 
and  ears  from  that  time  forth  for  evermore 
would  be  closed,  while  his  tongue  would  be 
dumb  from  ennui.  There  would  be  nothing 
more  for  him  to  do,  and  he  would  have  no 
further  need  of  existence.  Our  hope  of  im- 
mortality is  really  based  on  a  conviction  that 
the  individual  will  never  leave  his  imperfection 
behind,  but,  impelled  by  his  burden  of  sin  on 
the  one  hand,  and  his  aspiration  for  virtue  on 
the  other,  is  destined  to  climb  eternally  a  hill 
that  has  no  summit,  a  hill  that  God  heightens 
whenever  a  step  upward  has  been  taken. 

It  will  doubtless  seem  to  many  of  my  readers 
129 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

that  I  have  presented  in  this  essay  no  lofty  con- 
ception of  morality,  and  if  any  one  expected 
me  to  lay  down  a  moral  code  he  has  been 
doomed  to  disappointment.  I  have  no  code 
of  morals  which  I  desire  to  lay  down  for 
others  to  follow.  He  who  has  mastered  the 
secret  of  life  knows  that  the  secret  is  not  one 
that  can  be  universally  blabbed.  The  secret 
of  life  is  individual.  All  possess  it,  but  no  two 
have  the  same  secret.  Be  yourself,  then! 
Make  your  own  code  of  morals!  Genius  is 
God.  The  ideal  is  God.  And  as  one  learns 
to  respect  his  own  genius,  and  to  be  guided  by 
his  own  ideal,  he  becomes  a  master,  and  not  a 
servant,  of  life.  To  me,  as  well  as  to  Tenny- 
son, the  object  of  existence  has  been 

"To  search  thro'  all  I  felt  or  saw, 
The  springs  of  life,  the  depths  of  awe, 
And  reach  the  law  within  the  law." 

The  conclusion  at  which  I  have  arrived  may 
seem  surprisingly  simple,  too  simple,  it  may  be, 
for  those  who  love  complexity,  because  some 
day  they  hope  to  master  it,  and  thus  tower 
menacingly  above  their  fellows.  I  see  truth 
in  all  men.  I  see  beauty  in  all  men.  I  see 
goodness  in  all  men.  There  is  no  Absolute 
130 


MORALS 

Morality  common  to  all  individuals,  because 
every  individual  is  his  own  Absolute.  "Sub- 
limity," said  Longinus,  "is  the  echo  of  a  great 
soul."  And  it  is  within  the  power  of  every 
person  to  be  great,  and  hence  sublime.  There 
may  be  those  who  would  rejoice  to  see  all  the 
mountain-peaks  of  the  world  piled  on  top  of 
one  another,  so  that  there  would  no  longer  be, 
as  now,  thousands  of  individual  mountains, 
each  with  its  own  inalienably  unique  character, 
but  one  heaven-piercing  mountain  only;  if  such 
there  be,  I  have  no  quarrel  with  them,  but  I 
am  not  of  their  number.  I  perceive  the  blessed- 
ness of  limitations ;  am  thankful,  indeed,  for  my 
own.  To  be  is  enough.  Why  should  one  wish 
to  be  another?  Pleasant  is  the  give  and  take 
of  life,  when  giver  and  taker  alike  glow  with 
their  own  heroic  light,  and  breathe  forth  their 
own  music.  He  who  lives  a  life  that  is  poetry 
and  music  is  as  moral  as  one  needs  to  be.  He 
may  not  seem  so  to  the  generation  that  is  blind 
to  the  poetry  of  him,  and  deaf  to  the  music 
of  him,  but  to  every  richly-endowed  man  such 
a  one  is  moral.  The  codes  we  learn  to  throw 
away,  habits  we  learn  to  spurn;  but  whatso- 
ever is  sweet  and  harmonious  and  full  of  color 
is  of  the  morality  of  the  future.  There  are 
131 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

no  fixed  rules.  Life  is  fluid;  it  is  an  experi- 
ment, of  which  we  are  the  experimenters.  This 
may  seem  a  very  immoral  point  of  view  to  all 
who  have  come  to  believe  that  Morality  is  a 
Procrustean  Bed  to  which  all  must  be  fitted, 
quite  irrespective  of  their  ethical  dimensions. 
But  this  conception  of  morality  is  already  out 
of  date  among  all  who  dare  to  think  for  them- 
selves. It  was  a  conception  that  did  far  more 
harm  than  good,  and  does  to-day  where  it  still 
prevails.  For  morality  requires  breadth  and 
depth  and  height;  although  it  often  seems  in 
these  latter  days  to  be  lacking  in  every  de- 
sideratum. To  the  old  Roman  the  virtuous 
were  the  courageous,  and  it  were  well  if  that 
were  the  modern  view.  Our  ethical  standard 
ought  to  bear  in  mind  the  good  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  race  alike,  but  unfortunately  one 
or  the  other  is  usually  left  out  of  consideration. 
Morals  were  made  for  man;  not  for  morals 
was  man  made.  At  the  present  time  our  moral 
code  is  chiefly  concerned  in  bolstering  up  prop- 
erty rights,  and  certain  institutions,  and  it  never 
occurs  to  the  average  mind  to  consider  whether 
the  institution  or  vested  right  is  one  which  de- 
serves to  endure  or  not.  Government,  prop- 
erty, and  the  family  are  the  special  pets  of 
132 


MORALS 

the  moral  mongers.  But  one  has  a  right  to 
call  in  question  the  right  of  any  or  all  of  these 
institutions  to  endure;  one  has  a  right  to  call 
in  question  any  institution  that  may  exist.  Too 
long  has  Humanity  been  chained  to  the  stakes 
that  men  now  dead  drove  into  the  moral  soil 
of  their  eras;  too  long  has  Humanity  been 
crucified  in  order  to  gratify  some  ancient  tyran- 
nical impulse.  Conformity  has  been  regarded 
as  a  virtue;  non-conformity  a  sin.  Well,  so 
be  it.  But  let  us  not  forget  that  conventional 
virtue  may  be  weakness,  and  that  the  sinners 
have  given  to  the  world  all  of  its  force.  How 
can  we  get  the  most  out  of  life?  is  the  ques- 
tion which  every  person  should  ask,  when  con- 
sidering moral  questions.  If  the  conventional 
code  will  enable  us  to  get  the  most  out  of  life, 
then  it  ought  to  be  respected  and  conserved; 
but  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  rebel  has  dis- 
covered some  gold  of  character,  or  pearl  of 
truth,  hitherto  overlooked,  the  code,  if  it  stands 
in  the  way  of  a  universal  recognition  of  the 
discovery,  ought  to  perish.  It  is  always  per- 
missible to  be  a  traitor  to  the  old  moralities 
when  a  fairer  morality  has  dawned  within  the 
ethical  consciousness.  New  problems  have  come 
which  only  new  wisdom  can  solve,  and  if  the 
133 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

new  wine  of  thought  bursts  the  old  bottles  of 
morality,  then  the  old  bottles  must  be  relegated 
to  the  world's  moral  scrap-heap.  To  me  the 
most  sickening  chapters  in  the  history  of  man 
are  those  that  tell  the  story  of  how  individual 
genius  has  been  crushed  by  the  moral  ortho- 
doxies of  the  time.  Even  though  it  be  granted 
that  the  old  way  of  living  be  best  for  the  ma- 
jority, it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  best  for 
everybody,  and  it  should  not  preclude  the  su- 
perior person  from  living  in  accordance  with 
his  new  ideal.  Why  should  all  persons  be 
expected  to  live  after  the  same  fashion?  No 
two  are  cast  in  quite  the  same  mould.  Why 
then  should  we  insist  upon  a  single  standard  of 
morals? 

Where  would  we  be  to-day,  if  it  had  not  been 
for  the  bold,  defiant  rebels  of  society,  the  great 
sinners  of  the  past,  whose  dogmas  are  now 
accepted  as  tests  of  morality?  And  the  thing 
that  has  been  is  the  thing  that  shall  be.  Other 
great  rebels — sinners — will  come;  nay,  are 
already  at  our  gates,  whose  doctrines,  now 
condemned,  shall  be  a  part  of  the  morality  that 
is  to  come.  I  am  not  one  who  regards 
Nietzsche's  praise  of  the  Overman  as  the  final 
word  of  ethics,  but  there  is  something  to  be 


MORALS 

said  in  behalf  of  his  ideal.  Whenever  a  per- 
son comes  to  us  with  a  new  song  to  sing,  a 
new  picture  to  exhibit,  or  a  new  philosophy  to 
expound,  violence  is  done,  both  to  him  and  to 
ourselves,  if  he  be  prejudged  by  an  ethical  code 
that  passed  muster  with  previous  generations. 
Our  morals  are  never  absolute ;  they  are  always 
relative,  and  destined  to  pass  away  when  the 
need  for  them  is  gone.  Morality  is  only  the 
soil  in  which  Humanity  takes  root  and  grows. 
And  sometimes  this  soil  becomes  thin  and  poor, 
refusing  to  nourish  other  than  a  stunted  human 
crop,  just  as  the  soil  of  a  farmer's  field  becomes 
thin  and  poor,  after  it  has  nourished  vegetable 
growths  for  a  number  of  seasons.  There  was 
a  truth  expressed  by  the  Puritan  temper,  there 
was  a  reason  for  the  ascetic  ideal,  and  there  is 
no  just  reason  for  condemning  one  for  living 
in  accordance  with  his  puritanical,  or  ascetic, 
ideal,  if  this  ideal  be  of  his  nature.  But  few 
men  are  by  nature  Puritans,  or  ascetics.  Most 
persons  require  a  richer  ethical  diet  than  the 
harsh  moral  doctors  would  allow  them.  And 
if  they  resolve  to  be  the  masters  of  their  fate, 
the  captains  of  their  souls,  they  are  acting  quite 
within  their  rights,  and,  in  the  long  run,  it  will 
be  discovered  that  they  acted  for  the  higher 
135 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

interests  of  Humanity  as  well.  This  is  not  said 
to  justify  loose  ways  of  living;  it  is  said  to 
justify  the  masters  of  life  who  have  felt  the 
poetry  and  heard  the  music  of  existence,  to 
which  others  have  been  blind  and  deaf.  Genius 
is  always — for  itself — the  Supreme  Court, 
from  which  no  appeal  can  be  taken.  Lesser 
minds  may  rave  and  fume  at  its  so-called  im- 
morality, but  their  raving  and  fuming  will 
prove,  in  the  end,  to  have  been  impotent.  And 
every  person  possesses  a  genius  of  his  own,  if 
he  will  but  search  for  it,  a  sacred  fount,  from 
which  flows  the  rill  of  his  inspiration,  unique 
and  divine.  Some  day  when  we  shall  have 
attained  unto  a  higher  wisdom  than  is  now 
generally  known,  the  question  that  will  be  asked 
of  one  another  will  be,  not  Have  you  kept  your 
neighbor's  law,  but  Have  you  kept  your  own? 
And,  if  so,  what  new  truth  or  beauty  or  good- 
ness has  been  born  out  of  your  experience? 
For  we  are  destined  to  believe  in  progress,  to 
rest  assured  that 

"The  old  order  changeth,  yielding  place  to  new, 
And  God  fulfils  himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world." 


136 


SEX 

CEX  is  rapidly  becoming  to  the  modern  mind 
one  of  the  crassest  of  superstitions,  and  is 
resulting  in  a  considerable  degree  of  malevo- 
lence. I  do  not  mean  to  deny  the  vital  impor- 
tance of  sex  in  the  economy  of  life,  but  I  do 
wish  to  assert  that  there  is  danger  in  the 
apotheosis  of  sex  which  is  now  going  on.  Too 
much  time  and  energy  is  wasted  through  mak- 
ing a  fetish  of  it.  To  exaggerate  the  impor- 
tance of  sex  is  a  folly  of  youth,  and  a  disgrace 
of  ill-tutored  age.  In  our  day  it  is  beginning 
to  count  for  more  than  the  universe,  and  is  be- 
coming the  basis  of  religion.  It  is  the  theme 
of  most  of  our  fiction,  our  drama  is  drenched 
with  it,  and  our  verse  is  sadly  affected.  It 
vitiates  the  very  air  we  breathe. 

Perhaps  what  I  have  said  will  be  denounced 
by  the  unreflecting  and  the  unobservant  as  a 
miserable  piece  of  cynicism  on  my  part,  but  I 
submit  that  it  is  only  an  unvarnished  recital  of 
fact.  There  is,  indeed,  plenty  of  lip-worship 
137 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

which  speaks  of  other  than  sexual  gods  and 
goddesses,  and  there  are  still  men  who  do  not 
worship  in  the  groves  of  Baal.  But  they  are 
a  little  out  of  touch  with  the  intellectual  and 
sensational  life  of  the  time.  Probably  at  no 
period  in  human  history  did  sex  mean  quite 
as  much  as  it  means  to-day,  when  paganism  and 
its  gods  are  supposed  to  be  gone,  and  almost 
forgotten,  and  Christianity  and  its  ascetic  ideals 
in  the  ascendant.  That  a  great  truth  may  be 
discovered  ultimately  in  sex  worship  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  deny;  on  the  contrary,  I  think  that 
I  have  glimpsed  it.  But  not  until  sex  recedes 
a  little  from  our  vision  shall  we  see  even  the 
beauty  of  sex  for  what  it  is.  One  never  quite 
knows  what  a  person  has  meant  to  him,  until 
a  separation  has  taken  place.  We  honor  the 
dead,  because  we  have  come  to  see  them  for 
what  they  were;  because  we  see  them  as  they 
never  were  seen  when  they  shared  with  us  the 
burden  and  heat  of  the  day. 

I  do  not  object  to  sex-worship  in  itself.  I 
have  stood  at  its  altar;  have  myself  been  a 
worshipper,  and  am,  in  a  measure,  one  even 
yet.  But  I  am  not  a  Monotheist ;  I  am  a  Poly- 
theist.  I  have  many  gods,  and  some  goddesses. 
My  temple  is  the  Pantheon.  I  bow  low  when- 
138 


SEX 

ever  I  stand  before  a  Holy  Image.  But  I 
am  a  Catholic,  and  insist  that  there  shall  be 
no  neglect  of  any  divinity  or  saint.  As  one 
who  reverences  the  universal,  I  am  jealous 
when  I  see  the  universe  sacrificed  to  an  earth, 
the  whole  to  a  part.  And  that  is  what  the 
sex-worship  of  to-day  really  does.  It  sacrifices 
the  greater  things  to  the  smaller.  It  has  con- 
secrated a  narrow  amativeness,  which  has 
wrought  havoc  with  literature,  with  art,  and 
even  love  itself.  Within  its  consuming  fire  the 
interest  which  men  used  to  take  in  men  has 
largely  vanished.  Friendship  in  the  large 
heroic  sense  has  almost  passed  away.  No  one 
could  do  anything  to  help  poor  Burns  in  his 
misfortune,  said  Carlyle,  in  his  essay  on  the 
poet,  because  heroic  friendship  had  ceased  to 
be  regarded  as  a  virtue.  And  not  only  has 
heroic  friendship  between  man  and  man  passed 
away,  but  all  the  larger  heroisms  of  man  are 
passing  away  likewise.  Man  is  no  longer  heroic 
in  his  religion,  his  philosophy,  his  ideals  of  life. 
He  no  longer  seeks  to  scale  the  heights  where 
dwell  the  gods.  He  no  longer  feels  the  thrills 
of  the  larger  romanticism.  Friendship  is  not 
for  the  modern  a  sky-piercing  hill  of  romance, 
and  brotherhood  shrinks  quickly,  if  any  strong 
139 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

demand  is  made  upon  it.  A  novel  or  a  drama 
which  should  incarnate  the  adventures  of  some 
new  Orestes  and  Pylades,  or  Damon  and 
Pythias,  is  a  novel  that  would  be  likely  to  go 
unread,  a  drama  that  would  certainly  remain 
unacted.  The  story  of  a  man  who  walked  in 
loneliness  all  the  days  of  his  life  in  search  of 
the  Holy  Grail,  or  to  get  nearer  to  the  source 
of  all  terrestrial  things,  would  stir  no  en- 
thusiasm among  the  readers  of  popular  fiction. 
The  tale  of  a  celibate  Christ  of  the  twentieth 
century  would  seem  to  them  the  acme  of  dull- 
ness. There  must  be  a  swish  of  skirts  in  every 
book,  and  upon  every  stage,  to  attract  the  at- 
tention of  the  multitude.  There  is  a  desire 
that  the  impact  of  sex  upon  sex  may  every- 
where be  felt.  There  must  be  love  and  mar- 
riage, and  the  living  happily  ever  after,  or  a  di- 
vorce court  as  a  preliminary  to  more  passionate 
love-making  and  subsequent  marriage.  If  this 
condition  of  things  be  an  ideal,  the  ideal  has 
been  realized.  But  I  cannot  accept  it  as  one. 
It  seems  to  me  that  we  are  doing  obeisance  to 
an  idol. 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  are  doing  obeisance 
to   an  idol  that  keeps  us   from  the  largeness 
of  life.     When   the   two   members   of   a  pair 
140 


SEX 

are  regarded  as  the  absolute  complements  of 
each  other,  the  wretchedness  of  the  view  is  at 
once  apparent  to  me.  I  recall  that  wise  word 
of  Emerson:  "Heaven  is  not  the  union  of  a 
pair;  it  is  the  communion  of  all  souls."  Pairs! 
Is  that  the  object  of  life?  Is  life  satisfied 
when  she  has  paired  us  off,  so  that  each  has 
one  mate  and  no  more?  A  man  and  a  woman, 
or  two  men,  or  two  women — have  we  found  in 
this  romantic  love,  or  this  romantic  friendship, 
the  end  of  romance,  and  the  fulfilment  of  the 
divine  purpose?  There  are  doubtless  many 
who  will  say  yes,  but  I  say  no.  Like  Shelley, 

"I  never  was  attached  to  that  great  sect 
Whose  doctrine  is  that  each  one  should  select 
Out  of  the  world  a  mistress  or  a  friend, 
And  all  the  rest,  tho'  fair  and  wise,  commend 
To  cold  oblivion — tho'  'tis  in  the  code 
Of  modern  morals." 

Life  is  too  full  of  grandeur  to  be  narrowed 
in  our  thought  with  impunity.  There  are  other 
things  than  sex;  things  other  than  pairs.  And 
he  who  would  feast  on  the  teeming  riches  of 
the  globe  must  often  travel  far  from  the  bridal 
chamber  and  the  fireside.  The  man  or  woman 
who  believes  that  in  another  has  been  found 
all  the  richness  of  life  has  no  true  acquaintance 
141 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

with  life.  Let  us  admit  that  each  has  found 
in  the  other  a  piece  of  pure  gold.  But  are 
there  no  other  pieces  of  pure  gold?  Nay,  are 
there  not  pearls,  rubies  and  other  precious 
stones?  And  is  not  a  piece  of  pure  gold  a 
very  meagre  portion  for  one  who  has  imagined 
treasuries  deep  with  shining  coins?  "She  is  all 
the  world  to  me,"  one  hears,  that  and  the 
feminine  equivalent  thereof.  Ah !  well,  some 
persons  are  content  with  a  very  little.  They 
doubtless  feel  more  at  home  in  a  world  which 
they  can  clasp  in  their  arms  than  in  one  which 
requires  days  to  go  around.  There  were  many 
who  felt  lonely  when  Copernicus  shattered  the 
spheres  of  Ptolemy,  and  opened  a  vista  into 
infinitude.  But  will  it  be  said  that  I  desire 
to  rob  people  of  their  poetry  and  music?  That 
would  be  to  do  me  a  grave  injustice.  I  would 
that  all  men  might  see  the  poetry  and  hear  the 
music  that  may  be  seen  and  heard  in  every 
bright  and  shining  aspect  of  nature,  if  we 
but  open  our  eyes  and  ears  wide,  and  cease 
to  shut  ourselves  up  with  a  lonely  fiddle,  when 
the  orchestra  of  All-Souls  would  begin  to  play. 
But  let  me  indulge  now,  for  a  little  time,  in 
what  will  seem  like  a  palinode.  For  the  reality 
of  sex  almost  justifies  the  superstition  con- 


SEX 

earning  it,  which  is  so  common  in  our  time, 
but  not  quite.  Wisely  did  Whitman  speak, 
when  he  said  that  the  men  and  women  he 
knew  and  liked  were  those  who  knew  and 
avowed  the  deliciousness  of  their  sex.  Why, 
indeed,  should  we  not  know  and  avow  it?  We 
are  men — let  us  rejoice  in  our  manhood !  We 
are  women — let  us  rejoice  in  our  womanhood! 
There  is  nothing  in  the  physiology  of  sex,  of 
which  we  need  to  feel  ashamed.  There  is,  on 
the  contrary,  everything  to  give  us  a  sense  of 
pride.  There  is,  for  example,  the  lively  sense 
of  creation  that  dwells  in  our  sexual  physiology. 
Not  every  one  may  write  a  great  book,  or  com- 
pose music,  or  build  a  cathedral,  or  pile  up 
a  fortune.  But  to  nearly  all  is  given  the  power 
to  be  a  father  or  a  mother.  Ah!  what  do  we 
not  owe  to  this  mysterious  thing  which  we  call 
sex?  All  who  tread  the  globe,  all  who  now 
sleep  within  its  bosom,  all  who  shall  in  the  fu- 
ture inherit  it,  owe,  or  did,  or  will,  owe  to  sex 
the  joy  that  comes  from  communion  with 
flower-spotted  meads,  rolling  waters,  stalwart 
mountains  and  the  over-arching  sky.  The 
Dialogues  of  Plato,  the  Metaphysic  of  Aris- 
totle, the  Parables  of  Jesus,  the  Divine  Comedy 
of  Dante,  the  laughter  of  Cervantes,  the  humor 
143 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

and  pathos  of  Shakespeare,  the  sage  wisdom  of 
Goethe,  the  Symphonies  of  Beethoven,  the  Art 
of  Pheidias  and  Michelangelo  and  Raphael, 
have  all  come  to  us  through  the  narrow  gate- 
way of  birth.  A  man  and  a  woman  had  to 
cooperate  to  bring  these  marvels  to  earth. 
There  is  not  a  truth,  nor  a  good,  nor  a  sense 
of  the  beautiful,  which  does  not  owe  a  debt  to 
sex.  I  do  not  wonder  that  the  Venusberg  has 
become  a  holy  hill.  I  am  not  surprised  at  any 
of  the  excesses  of  phallic  worship.  For  here 
am  I  in  this  beautiful  old  world,  listening,  with 
the  deepest  of  raptures,  to  the  singing  of  birds, 
and  viewing  the  gorgeous  magnificence  of  the 
dawn  and  eventide,  drinking  in,  with  a  subtile 
sense  of  intoxication,  the  fragrance  of  the  lilies, 
and  bathed  day  and  night  in  grandeurs  that 
paralyze  my  poor  organs  of  speech  when  I 
would  voice  them,  because  of  sex.  There  is 
not  a  joy  which  I  recall  that  does  not  bear 
witness  to  sex.  The  friends  I  love,  the  books 
that  have  inspired  me,  the  thoughts  and  emo- 
tions that  have  filled  me  with  raptures  ineffable, 
were  born,  because  physiology  was  not  despised 
and  rejected,  but  accepted  and  loved.  What 
wonder  that  the  poor  monk  and  nun  have  often 
been  regarded  as  the  enemies  of  the  human 
144 


SEX 

race,  as  they  deliberately  averted  their  faces 
from  the  mysteries  of  procreation,  and  covered 
them  with  veils  and  hoods! 

No;  there  is  nothing  in  the  flesh  of  which 
one  should  feel  ashamed.  There  is  no  inde- 
cency in  nudity.  I  met  once  an  old  gentleman, 
the  author  of  a  critical  work  on  Jesus,  who 
thought  differently.  He  regarded  himself  as 
a  liberal  in  religious  matters.  He  did  not  be- 
lieve in  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  He  was, 
so  far  as  I  could  see,  an  out-and-out  Material- 
ist. But  this  venerable  gentleman  was  pained 
by  every  reference  to  nudity  in  nature.  He 
could  not  understand  why  Whitman  should 
have  felt  it  necessary  to  refer  to  the  summer 
night  as  naked.  He  believed  that  nature  was 
the  mother  of  man,  and  that  man  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  his  origin.  I  used  to  know  an 
English  Materialist  who  was  also  very  pro- 
nounced in  his  abhorrence  of  nudity.  For  a 
long  time  I  was  puzzled  to  conceive  why  these 
men,  so  materialistic  in  their  philosophies  of 
life,  should  have  been  so  squeamish  in  their  at- 
titude toward  matter.  But  it  dawned  upon  me 
at  last  that  a  Materialist  with  refined  instincts 
was  just  the  person  to  be  shocked  by  the  gross- 
ness  of  nature.  Believing,  as  he  must,  that 
145 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

all  is  to  end  in  naught,  that  nature  does  but 
bring  to  life,  in  order  to  bring  to  death  again, 
it  becomes  apparent  why  nature  may  wear  a 
hateful  aspect  to  his  eyes,  and  nudity,  as  a 
manifestation  of  this  power  to  bring  into  exist- 
ence forms  destined  to  perish  everlastingly, 
seem  shocking.  But  to  one  who  views  nature 
and  life  from  a  spiritual  point  of  view,  nudity 
ought  to  be  regarded  as  a  glorious  thing  to  look 
upon.  It  is  good  to  look  upon  our  own;  it  is 
good  to  look  upon  the  nudity  of  others.  Presi- 
dent Hall,  of  Clark  University,  has  said  that 
it  is  beneficial  for  a  boy  to  strip  in  the  presence 
of  the  man  who  is  going  to  give  him  a  physical 
examination.  I  am  sure  that  he  is  right,  and 
that  it  is  also  beneficial  for  boys  and  men  alike 
to  strip  in  one  another's  presence  in  the 
gymnasium,  or  on  the  banks  of  the  swimming- 
pool,  for  a  large  amount  of  prudery,  of 
squeamishness,  of  mock-modesty,  is,  in  this 
way,  dissipated.  And,  besides,  to  view  a  human 
body  which  is  finely  moulded  possesses  all  the 
virtue  that  may  be  found  in  viewing  a  beautiful 
statue.  A  race  of  men  who  enjoyed  thoroughly 
one  another's  physical  perfections  would  be 
almost  civilized.  They  would  stand  at  an  in- 
tellectual and  aesthetic  height  that  has  not  been 
146 


SEX 

attained  since  the  time  of  the  Greeks.  When 
William  Blake  and  his  wife  sat  in  strict  nudity 
in  their  garden,  on  the  night  that  the  caller 
arrived,  they  did  not  shock  any  holy  angel, 
and  it  were  well,  if  there  were  more  persons 
like  the  artist-poet  and  his  wife. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  impression  that  the 
electric  poems  of  Whitman  in  regard  to  the 
body  made  upon  me  years  ago.  I  saw  quickly 
that  the  real  stuff  of  poetry  was  in  them,  that 
they  were  poems  rich  with  truth  too  seldom 
realized.  I  saw  in  these  poems  the  fine  thought 
and  feeling  of  one  who  was  not  afraid  of  sex — 
not  even  of  his  own.  They  came  to  me  like 
a  cool  fresh  breeze  at  the  end  of  a  sultry  day. 
They  opened  up  for  me  new  vistas  into  the 
joy  of  life,  for  they  sang  into  my  soul  the 
eternal  beauty  of  the  flesh.  I  saw  through 
them  that  the  flesh  was  not  one  thing,  and  the 
spirit  another,  but  that  the  flesh  did  but  reveal, 
in  some  measure,  the  underlying  spirit;  that 
fleshly  bodies  were  as  spiritual  as  the  spiritual 
body  of  which  Paul  speaks,  if  we  may  assume 
it  to  have  existed  outside  of  his  creative  imagi- 
nation. After  reading  Whitman,  it  became  im- 
possible longer  to  listen  to  those  who  regarded 
the  flesh,  and  the  facts  of  the  flesh,  with  ab- 
147 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

horrence;  impossible,  too,  to  regard  sex  as  in 
itself  a  confession  of  sin.  And,  at  this  junc- 
ture, I  would  call  attention  to  one  of  the  most 
baleful  features  discovered  in  the  superstitious 
worship  of  sex.  For,  while  millions  find  in  sex 
their  highest,  and  perhaps  only,  divinity,  there 
yet  remains  in  many  of  these  minds  a  haunting 
suspicion  that  the  god,  or  goddess,  of  their 
idolatry  is,  after  all,  only  a  delightful  devil, 
yet  malicious  at  heart,  and  to  be  worshipped 
in  secret  rather  than  in  public.  And  this  is 
why  so  many  repudiate  in  public  all  that  they 
have  done  or  whispered  in  private.  Their 
fears  make  hypocrites  of  them.  But  there  is 
no  sin  in  acknowledging  joyfully  the  pride  that 
one  feels  in  his  own  sex,  or  in  the  satisfaction 
derived  from  the  other. 

While  I  am  not  sympathetically  disposed  to- 
ward some  of  the  ultra  sex-notions  of  our  time, 
so  wonderful  is  sex,  even  when  considered  most 
rationally,  that  I  can  quite  understand  them. 
The  good  that  comes  to  us  from  sex  is  so  real 
and  vital  that  it  is  not  strange  if  many  forget 
the  river  of  life,  and  even  the  supernatural 
source  of  this  river,  when  surveying  the  fountain 
from  which  it  first  emerges  to  the  earthly  view. 
But  to  cut  short  this  digression,  I  would  call 
148 


SEX 

attention  to  the  fact  that  sex  is  a  distinctive 
feature  of  all  human  bodies,  except  the  bodies 
of  children,  and  that  the  minds  of  adults  are 
not  epicene.  The  bodies  of  men  and  women 
have  likenesses  to  each  other,  too.  Not  only 
do  they  possess  the  various  organs  which  they 
share  together,  as  human  beings,  but  there  is 
not  so  much  difference  in  the  distinctive  organs 
of  sex  as  a  superficial  appearance  would  indi- 
cate. The  clitoris  in  women,  for  example,  is 
really  nothing  more  than  an  undeveloped  penis, 
and  the  prostate  gland  in  man  is  held  by  some 
physiological  theorists  to  be  but  a  rudimentary 
womb.  Man  has  the  rudiments  of  the  female 
mammary  glands,  and  in  rare  instances  these 
have  been  quite  fully  developed.  As  this  is 
not  an  essay  on  the  physiology  of  sex,  I  need 
not  dwell  at  length  upon  this  side  of  the  sexual 
problem,  but  it  ought  to  be  definitely  under- 
stood that  sex  is  not  understandable  if  we  omit 
the  consideration  of  the  physiological  factors. 
Instinct  is  always  based  upon  organization,  and 
there  is  not  a  sexual  impulse  that  is  anything 
more  than  the  pressure  of  physiological  neces- 
sity. Man  rises  above  physiology  in  his  great 
imaginings,  in  his  mighty  ratiocinations,  and  in 
his  idealistic  visions.  But  in  his  sexual  nature 
149 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

he  is,  like  the  creatures  below  him,  the  victim 
of  his  organization,  and  consequently  a  thing 
of  instinct.  The  sympathetic  psychology  which 
is  possessed  by  man  for  woman,  and  by  woman 
for  man,  is  occasioned  by  a  tyrannous  physio- 
logical mandate.  And,  when  I  observe  how 
wide  the  range  of  variation  between  members 
of  the  same  sex  is,  it  becomes  evident  to  me 
how  a  little  excess  at  this  point,  or  a  little  de- 
ficiency at  that,  may  produce  the  homo-sexual- 
ist  of  both  sexes,  or  the  psycho-sexual  herma- 
phrodite of  both.  Male  and  female  are  alike 
in  difference,  and  there  is  hardly  a  greater  dif- 
ference between  the  members  of  one  sex,  as 
compared  with  the  members  of  the  other,  than 
there  is  between  the  members  of  one  sex  when 
considered  with  reference  to  one  another. 
There  are  women  whose  clitoris  is  abnormally 
large;  there  are  men  whose  penis  is  abnormally 
small.  There  are  men  who  are  largely  en- 
dowed with  feminine  traits;  there  are  women 
who  are  largely  endowed  with  masculine  traits. 
In  barbarous  societies  the  differences  between 
the  sexes  are  said  to  be  less  than  in  civilized 
societies,  and  probably  the  statement  is  per- 
fectly true;  but  the  same  statement  can  also 
be  made  in  respect  to  the  individuals  who 
150 


SEX 

compose  barbarous  and  civilized  societies.  In 
civilized  communities  masculine  ideals  win 
women,  and  feminine  ideals  win  men.  Speak- 
ing psychologically,  it  is  sometimes  hard  to  de- 
termine which  is  the  man,  and  which  the 
woman.  Which  was  the  man,  and  which  the 
woman,  in  that  pair  of  which  Chopin  and 
George  Sand  were  the  members?  Dr.  Hedge 
said  that  Dr.  Channing  had  a  feminine  mind. 
The  tenderness  of  Gautama  was  feminine,  and 
was  not  Jesus  very  much  of  a  woman  in  some 
of  his  characteristics?  Goethe  said  that  there 
was  something  feminine  in  all  genius,  while 
Coleridge  went  further,  declaring  that  the  mind 
of  a  genius  must  be  androgynous.  Tennyson 
dared  in  The  Princess  to  prophesy  that  the 
sexes  were  destined  to  become  more  and  more 
alike. 

"Yet  in  the  long  run  liker  must  they  grow; 
The  man  be  more  of  woman,  she  of  man; 
He  gain  in  sweetness  and  in  moral  height, — 
Nor  lose  in  wrestling  thews  that  throw  the  world; 
She  mental  breadth,  nor  fail  in  childhood  care; 
Nor  lose  the  childlike  in  the  higher  mind." 

There  is  much  in  this  thought  expressed  by 

Tennyson  that  will  displease  those  who  desire 

to  see  the  sexes  kept  as  far  apart  as  possible. 

151 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

But  there  is  only  one  way  to  keep  men  ultra- 
masculine,  and  women  ultra-feminine,  and  that 
consists  in  keeping  the  sexes  segregated.  The 
strong-minded  woman  is  here,  and  so  is  the 
man  who  is  almost  half  a  woman,  or  even 
more  than  half.  We  grow  into  the  nature 
of  what  we  worship,  and  sex-worship  is  destined 
to  produce  some  strange,  and,  at  one  time, 
unforeseen  results.  There  is  already  a  con- 
siderable amalgamation  of  the  sexes,  and  there 
will  be  more.  There  may  be  differences 
destined  to  be  eternal,  but  who  will  dare  to 
prophesy  even  this?  Woman  is  said  to  be  an 
undeveloped  man,  but  there  are  indications  that 
woman  is  going  to  develop. 

I  have  said  that  sex  is  a  distinguishing  char- 
acteristic of  all  bodies  except  those  of  children. 
I  believe  that  the  truth  of  this  statement  is  not 
as  well  known  as  it  should  be.  Few  as  the 
anatomical  differences  of  sex  are,  the  glamor  of 
sex  is  found  pervading  the  entire  body  of  a 
man  or  woman.  The  hand  of  a  man  may  be 
as  soft  as  the  hand  of  a  woman,  but  it  does  not 
lose  thereby  a  distinctively  masculine  touch,  if 
the  man  himself  be  thoroughly  masculine.  Sex 
is  discovered  in  the  tactile  sensibility  of  bodies. 
Contrary  to  the  usually  accepted  opinion,  the 
152 


tactile  sensibility  of  man  is  greater  than  that 
of  woman,  just  as  the  tactile  sensibility  of  a 
civilized  person  is  greater  than  that  of  a  savage. 
It  would  be  interesting,  in  this  connection,  to 
ascertain  whether  the  tactile  sensibility  of  the 
masculine  type  of  woman  is  greater  than  the 
tactile  sensibility  of  the  more  normal  type,  and 
that  of  the  effeminate  man  less.  Woman's  love 
for  man  appears  to  be  largely  a  kind  of  long- 
ing, a  desire  to  be  lifted  up  and  glorified;  the 
love  of  man  for  woman  is  based  upon  his  tactile 
sensibility.  The  male  is  always  a  reservoir  of 
physical  passion;  the  passion  of  woman  needs 
the  stimulus  of  artificial  excitement.  There 
would  be  little  attraction  between  men  and 
women,  if  women  were  as  cold  and  devoid  of 
passion,  save  at  stated  intervals,  as  the  female 
animals  are ;  and  there  is  evidence  that,  through 
intimate  contact  with  men,  women  are  develop- 
ing in  warmth  of  passional  ardor.  Perhaps  the 
sexual  irregularities  which  are  aired  so  fre- 
quently in  the  divorce  courts  of  our  time  are 
largely  the  product  of  this  increased  passional 
attraction.  Formerly  men  associated  more 
with  men,  and  women  with  women;  there  was 
less  association  between  the  sexes  than  now; 
men,  indeed,  rather  preferred  the  association 
153 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

of  their  own  sex  to  that  of  the  other,  as  a  man 
who  is  a  little  old-fashioned  often  does  to-day. 
The  new  intimacy,  it  must  be  confessed,  is 
changing  both  men  and  women  very  fast — a 
little  to  their  hurt,  it  may  be.  For  a  race  in 
which  women  were  allowed  to  sit  on  thrones 
and  be  queens,  while  men  no  longer  essayed  the 
role  of  kings,  would  be  nothing  short  of  a 
calamity,  and  something  of  this  sort  we  are 
witnessing  at  the  present  time  in  America. 

Nevertheless,  men,  no  less  than  women,  have 
gained  much  through  contact  with  the  opposite 
sex.  No  words  can  adequately  express  the 
debt  which  men  owe  to  their  mothers,  and  often 
to  the  other  female  members  of  the  family  into 
which  they  were  born.  To  their  wives,  and 
other  women  met  in  later  life,  they  have  not, 
as  a  rule,  owed  a  tithe  as  much.  It  is  in  the 
days  of  infancy  and  extreme  youth  that  we  are 
most  open  to  feminine  influence,  so  far  as  this 
influence  is  an  intellectual  and  moral  one.  The 
character  of  the  man  is  usually  formed  by  the 
time  that  he  marries,  and,  when  the  first  flush 
of  passion  is  over,  he  usually  resents  any  at- 
tempt on  the  part  of  his  spouse  to  reform  him. 
He  may  listen  to  one  of  his  own  sex,  but  a 
154 


SEX 

little  contempt  for  the  opinions  of  the  other 
sex,  he  is  almost  certain  to  feel.  We  know 
now  that  even  in  the  animal  world  there  is 
more  sympathy  between  male  and  male  than 
used  to  be  thought,  and  our  thanks  are  due  to 
Prince  Kropotkin  for  the  emphasis  which  he 
has  been  able  to  place  on  mutual  aid  as  a  factor 
of  evolution.  And  man  has  acquired  more  than 
one  virtue  from  association  with  his  own  sex, 
for  which  he  owes  nothing  to  the  other.  Man 
learned  to  love  his  child  before  he  learned  to 
love  his  wife,  it  is  maintained  in  some  quarters, 
and  it  is  quite  probable.  Perhaps  it  was  not 
his  wife,  but  his  infant,  that  first  tamed  barbar- 
ous man. 

Sex  is  not  so  simple  a  problem  as  the 
Philistines  have  imagined  it.  It  means  more 
than  the  attraction  of  man  for  woman,  or  of 
woman  for  man ;  more  than  this  attraction  must 
be  considered  in  discussing  the  problem  of  sex. 
For  there  is  also  an  attraction  felt  between  in- 
dividuals of  the  same  sex  for  each  other,  that 
is  sexual  in  its  essence,  or  partly  sexual,  at  any 
rate.  Do  these  attractions  find  their  roots  in 
some  obscure  differentiation  of  the  physiolog- 
ical factors? 

155 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

"Free  surmise  may  sport  and  welcome,  pleasures, 
pains,  affect  mankind, 

Just  as  they  affect  myself?  Why,  here's  my  neigh- 
bour color-blind, 

Eyes  like  mine  to  all  appearance,  green  as  grass  do 
I  affirm? 

Red  as  grass,  he  contradicts  me;  which  employs  the 
proper  term?" 

I  am  indeed  of  the  opinion  that  much  which 
has  been  called  homo-sexuality  is  not  primarily 
sexual  feeling  at  all,  although,  in  holding  this 
opinion,  I  may  stand  alone.  A  feeling  which 
arises  in  the  mind  cannot  be  sexual,  except  in 
the  general  sense  that  all  feelings,  even  such 
as  hunger  and  thirst,  are,  in  the  last  analysis, 
mental.  And  much  which  passes  for  homo- 
sexuality is  mental,  rather  than  physical,  in  its 
origin.  The  attraction  of  sex  for  sex  is  not, 
as  we  commonly  employ  terms,  a  mental 
phenomenon.  It  is  a  purely  physical  desire, 
and  may  exist,  as  is  seen  in  the  case  of 
Schopenhauer,  side  by  side  with  a  distinct  in- 
tellectual repugnance  for  the  object  of  the 
passion.  Sex  attracts  sex,  not  because  the  in- 
tellect desires  it,  but  because  the  physiological 
factors  are  impetuous.  Sexual  passion  is  akin 
to  chemical  affinity.  The  physiology  of  the 
156 


SEX 

male  possesses  a  burning  desire,  which  can 
seemingly  be  gratified  only  through  the 
physiology  of  the  female — or  at  least,  to  its 
full  extent,  in  the  normal  individual,  and  the 
same  statement  will  apply  to  the  physiology 
of  the  female,  although  much  of  the  passion 
may  be  determined  by  the  propinquity  of  the 
sexes.  But  abnormal  individuals  of  both  sexes 
may  have  no  desire  for  the  opposite  sex,  and 
yet  possess  an  intense  desire  for  an  individual, 
or  for  many  individuals,  of  their  own  sex. 
Other  individuals  are  bi-sexual;  that  is,  indi- 
viduals of  their  own  sex  and  of  the  opposite 
sex  alike  attract  them,  and  there  is  good  reason 
for  thinking  that  a  larger  number  of  bi-sexual- 
ists  exist  than  was  supposed  a  few  years  ago. 
The  opinion  has  been  expressed,  and  it  is  quite 
possibly  a  true  opinion,  that  the  germs  of  all 
sexual  abnormalities  exist  in  us  all,  but  are 
held  in  check  by  inhibitions  of  various  kinds 
in  a  majority  of  individuals.  There  have  been 
anchorites  who  have  crushed  the  normal  desire, 
although  at  a  heavy  cost  to  themselves,  and 
some  of  the  Stoic  philosophers  adopted  homo- 
sexual practices,  because  they  fancied  they  were 
less  sensual  than  the  hetero-sexual  practices. 
Or,  rather,  that  is  the  explanation  given.  Per- 
157 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

haps  the  truth  does  not  lie  in  this  explanation. 
But  I  believe  that  homo-sexuality  among  the 
Greeks  was  largely,  and  in  the  main,  indeed, 
an  intellectual  and  spiritual,  rather  than  a 
physical,  craving.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
the  charms  of  women  were  overlooked  among 
them;  there  appears  to  have  been  no  danger  of 
race-suicide.  But  the  Greeks  were  the  most 
intense  critics  of  life  that  the  world  has  seen, 
and  by  an  intellectual  process  they  came  to 
prize  the  Eternal  Masculine  as  no  other  race, 
as  a  whole,  has  prized  it.  They  came  to  feel 
that  masculine  beauty  was  the  highest  type  of 
beauty,  that  friendship,  or  love  between  man 
and  man,  was  the  noblest  of  ideals;  they  ex- 
alted the  prowess  of  the  athlete,  and  the  athleti- 
cism of  the  intellect,  to  the  highest  power; 
and,  in  the  course  of  their  criticism,  they 
reached  the  conclusion  that  a  love  between  man 
and  man  that  culminated  in  desire  for  the  most 
intimate  physical  contact  was  godlike,  and  de- 
serving of  the  warmest  commendation.  One 
learns  from  the  speech  of  the  inebriated  Alci- 
biades,  who  unblushingly,  as  Plato  reports  his 
words,  in  The  Banquet,  confesses  his  love  for 
Socrates,  and  relates  a  story  of  offered  oppor- 
tunity for  the  gratification  of  physical  passion, 
158 


SEX 

how  strongly  the  new  ideal  of  love  had  taken 
root  among  the  Greeks.  A  passionate  and 
romantic  friendship,  such  as  was  common,  if 
not  universal,  among  the  Athenians  is  capable 
of  going  to  any  length,  and  may,  and  probably 
will,  simulate  all  the  transports  of  sexuality, 
but  the  motive  for  the  union  will  not  be  quite 
the  same  as  that  which  draws  individuals  of 
the  opposite  sex  together,  because  the  one  is 
rooted  in  the  mind,  while  the  other  is  rooted 
in  the  sense.  This  is  the  way,  as  I  construe  it, 
that  the  Greeks  themselves  regarded  the  matter. 
It  is  true  that  the  masculine  body  was  honored 
by  them  in  a  fashion  which  the  modern  spirit 
is  not  supposed  to  sanction,  but  even  this  honor 
had  an  intellectual  basis,  for  it  came  from  that 
intense  love  for  beauty,  that  reverence  for  it, 
as  might  be  said,  which  spared  the  life  of  more 
than  one  criminal  of  rare  physical  perfection, 
and  which  decreed  that  the  criminal  doomed 
to  death  should  be  executed  in  a  way  that  did 
no  violence  to  the  miracle  of  the  organized 
flesh.  The  relations  of  the  Greeks,  to  which 
the  term  homo-sexual  is  applied,  were  sexual 
only  in  a  secondary  sense.  The  affection 
which  brought  the  older  and  younger  men  to- 
gether sprang  from  no  mere  sexual  impulse, 
159 


THE    SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

but  was  the  incarnation  of  an  ideal  which  grew 
up  on  Greek  soil  as  naturally  as  a  flower.  We 
may  not  be  able  to  understand  it  to-day,  but 
it  will  do  us  no  harm  to  try. 

That  a  real  homo-sexual  impulse,  an  impulse, 
that  is,  of  the  senses  only,  is  discoverable,  how- 
ever, in  many  individuals  is  undeniable.  There 
are  other  abnormalities  even  stranger  that  may 
be  found.  But  I  will  pass  them  by.  So  far 
as  all  passions  are  concerned,  they  may  be  con- 
sidered from  two  points  of  view — the  biological 
and  the  psychological.  Biology  sanctions  only 
the  hetero-sexual  passion,  for  this  is  the  only 
passion  whose  effect  is  to  bring  children  into 
our  world.  But,  when  we  clear  our  minds  of 
cant,  we  are  forced  to  confess  that  the  child 
is  little  more  than  a  by-product  of  the  play 
of  sex.  Just  as  a  person  eats,  not  for  the  pur- 
pose of  nourishing  his  tissues,  but  because  the 
appetite  is  keen,  and  the  palate  tickled,  so  the 
play  of  sexual  organisms  is  carried  on  because 
it  is  a  form  of  sense  enjoyment  and  a  physio- 
logical necessity.  It  should  be  added  that  it  is 
a  psychological  necessity  also,  and  a  psycholog- 
ical necessity  outweighs  all  biological  considera- 
tions. It  will  not  do  for  the  man  or  woman 
who  indulge  from  necessity  their  hetero-sexual 
160 


SEX 

tastes  to  throw  stones  at  the  man  or  woman 
who  indulge  from  necessity  their  homo-sexual 
tastes.  One  might  as  well  stone  a  painter  be- 
cause he  is  not  a  sculptor,  or  a  sculptor  because 
he  is  not  a  painter.  All  pleasure  which  one  is 
impelled  through  physiological  or  psychological 
necessity  to  seek  is  legitimate  if  it  does  no  vio- 
lence to  the  liberties  and  rights  of  others,  and 
a  society  which  has  been  capable  of  bearing  up 
under  the  load  of  lewdness  which  has  been  seen 
in  her  brothels  for  thousands  of  years  ought 
not  to  be  greatly  grieved  over  the  acts  of  the 
homo-sexualists.  No  matter  how  bad  some  of 
these  may  appear  to  be,  they  can  be  no  worse 
than  much  which  has  been,  and  is  still,  freely 
permitted.  Those  who  have  studied  the  matter 
with  the  greatest  care,  such  as  physicians  and 
psychologists,  are  almost  a  unit  in  declaring 
that  the  beneficence  or  harmfulness  of  any  given 
sexual  act  is  not  much  different  from  the 
beneficence  or  harmfulness  of  another,  when 
considered  from  a  psychological,  or  physiologi- 
cal, standpoint.  This  point  of  view  may  not 
please  the  Philistines,  and  I  daresay  it  will  not, 
but  it  is  time  that  we  were  done  with  Philistin- 
ism, and  considered  only  facts  and  truths.  The 
liberal  mind  will  always  be  open  to  hear  all 
161 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

that  the  doctors  of  all  the  sciences  and  the 
philosophies  have  to  say.  It  will  be  impervious 
to  none.  What  I  have  here  written  will  doubt- 
less shock  a  great  many  people.  I  hope  it  will. 
There  are  many  people  who  will  need  a  fresh 
shock  every  day  throughout  eternity  before  they 
will  be  able  to  absorb  an  idea,  and  even  then 
the  issue  in  some  cases  may  be  doubtful.  One 
can  discuss  without  dissent  a  great  many  pe- 
culiar facts,  if  one  begins  his  dissertation  with 
a  sop  to  the  Philistine,  by  speaking  of  this  habit 
or  that  as  disgusting.  But  such  is  not  my 
method.  I  know  nothing  on  earth  quite  so  dis- 
gusting as  a  Philistine. 

I  began  this  essay  with  a  fling  at  the  super- 
stition of  sex.  But  I  hope  that  I  have  shown 
all  who  have  followed  me  thus  far  that  I  am 
not  blind  to  the  meaning  of  sex.  I  would  say 
that  sex  is  like  money.  It  is  good  for  what 
it  will  bring  us.  Money  is  only  a  medium  of 
exchange.  A  dollar  in  itself  is  of  less  worth 
than  a  pebble.  But  many  lose  sight  of  the  real 
meaning  of  money,  and  become  misers.  The 
miser  believes  that  money  is  a  good  in  itself. 
And  so  he  lives  by  night  and  day,  with  no 
other  thought  in  his  mind  than  how  much 
money  he  has  accumulated.  The  golden  days 
162 


SEX 

go  over  him,  and  he  does  not  see  a  thing.  His 
eyes  are  blind  to  beauty,  his  ears  are  deaf  to 
music,  his  soul  never  dreams  of  ascending  the- 
dome  of  thought.  He  does  not  know  the  dif- 
ference between  real  joy  and  misery.  Money 
has  become  for  him  the  be-all  and  end-all,  the 
alpha  and  omega,  of  existence.  Every  one 
who  is  not  a  miser  pities  one.  But  the  miser 
is  not  one  whit  different  in  his  essential  essence 
from  the  man  or  woman  to  whom  sex  has  be- 
come the  all  of  being.  The  man  who  can  see 
nothing  but  woman,  the  woman  who  can  see 
nothing  but  man,  is  a  miser  of  sex.  Instead  of 
perceiving  that  sex,  like  money,  is  only  a  medium 
of  exchange,  by  which  we  obtain  the  goods  of 
life  that  are  desired,  they  believe  that  sex  is 
the  one  thing  to  be  desired.  They  make 
physiology  king,  just  as  the  other  kind  of  miser 
makes  gold  king.  There  are  millions  of  men 
and  women  who  believe  that  the  essence  of  life 
is  just  an  opportunity  to  gloat  over  sex,  as 
the  person  who  is  money-mad  believes  that  the 
essence  of  life  is  just  an  opportunity  to  gloat 
over  moneys,  real  estate,  and  stocks  and  bonds. 
And  both  types  of  these  mad  worshippers  are 
losing  all  the  time  the  manifold  riches  which 
might  be  theirs.  If  it  be  said  in  reply  that 
163 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

there  are  comparatively  few  who  look  upon 
sex  as  all,  it  is  sufficient  to  retort  that  there 
are  comparatively  few  who  look  upon  money 
as  all,  but  as  there  are  millions  who  regard 
money  as  the  main  interest  in  life,  so  there  are 
millions  who  regard  sex  as  the  main  interest 
in  life;  and  both  of  these  beliefs  are  false  be- 
liefs. By  regarding  sex  as  the  main  thing, 
just  as  by  regarding  money  as  the  main  thing, 
one's  outlook  upon  life  becomes  so  falsely 
colored  that  nothing  is  seen  for  what  it  really  is. 
There  are,  speaking  broadly,  just  three  goods 
of  life.  One  of  these  is  knowledge,  a  second 
is  aspiration,  and  the  third  is  love.  The  mad 
sex-worshipper  knows  little  of  any  of  them. 
Knowledge  and  aspiration  he  is  absolutely  di- 
vorced from,  and  his  love  is  lacking  in  breadth. 
He  may  be  deeply  immersed  in  affection  for 
one  individual,  or  even  for  a  sex,  but  if  all 
the  boundless  wealth  of  knowledge,  of  poetry, 
of  music,  of  the  deeper  meanings  of  art  and 
philosophy  and  friendship  be  not  his,  how  much 
is  really  his?  Very  little,  I  should  say.  His 
life  has  become  one  of  sensation  merely,  and  is, 
moreover,  but  a  harping  on  one  string.  To  love 
a  man  is  good,  to  love  a  woman  is  good,  but  to 
rest  content  in  so  narrow  a  groove  is  like  losing 
164 


SEX 

an  ocean  because  one  has  been  hypnotized  by  a 
drop  of  water.  To  love  a  sex  means  more 
than  loving  only  one  member  of  it,  but  when 
one  gives  up  to  sex  what  was  meant  for  man- 
kind, and  the  universe,  it  is  like  living  in  some 
small  town  all  of  one's  days,  and  dreaming 
that  life  elsewhere  must  be  a  tale  of  sordidness 
and  woe. 

Perhaps  some  will  assert  that  I  am,  after 
all,  only  belaboring  a  bugaboo,  that  I  am  only 
knocking  down  a  man  of  straw  that  I  have 
myself  set  up.  I  wish  that  this  were  so.  But 
the  facts  are  quite  to  the  contrary.  The  large- 
ness of  life  does  not  loom  upon  the  horizon, 
and  glow  within  the  imagination,  of  our  age  as 
it  has  loomed  and  glowed  in  former  ages.  The 
literature  of  the  age  is  getting  thin.  Friend- 
ship between  man  and  man  is  becoming  a 
poverty-stricken  relationship.  Men  are  losing 
faith  in  spiritual  verities,  because  they  cannot 
conceive  the  worth  of  ideals.  They  are  not 
only  beginning  to  doubt  the  immortality  of 
their  souls,  but,  worse  yet,  whether  they  have 
any  souls  that  are  deserving  of  immortality. 
Intellectual  and  moral  bankruptcy  stares  us  in 
the  face.  Men  and  women  are  seriously  be- 
ginning to  believe  that  we  can  live  in  the  world 
165 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

without  ideals  at  all.  What  a  terrible  delu- 
sion! 

And  it  is  sex  which  many  would  substitute 
for  the  spiritual  verities,  for  the  old-time 
friendship  between  man  and  man,  for  ideals, 
for  religious  feeling,  and  the  large  conceptions 
of  life.  Our  contemporary  literature — as 
barren,  for  the  most  part,  as  a  field  of  oaten 
stubble — reflects  the  sex-mania  into  which  the 
age  has  fallen.  The  last  works  of  the  late 
George  Meredith,  the  last  works  of  fiction 
penned  by  Thomas  Hardy — great  men  both, 
in  many  respects — and  the  works  of  innumera- 
ble European  writers,  and  American  scribblers, 
are  sufficient  proof  of  my  contention. 

The  stage  can  no  longer  endure  Shakespeare; 
it  wants  a  contemporary  Feathertop  of  letters — 
and  it  gets  him.  Stage  and  sex  begin  with  the 
same  letter,  and  are  coming  to  mean  pretty 
much  the  same  thing.  The  play  has  become  a 
"show,"  like  a  circus-attraction,  and  it  is  re- 
garded as  good  business  to  advertise  the 
"show"  as  one  consisting  of  "mostly  girls." 
Legs  are  now  more  popular  than  brains.  Legs 
— the  whole  degradation  of  our  stage  is  summed 
up  in  that  one  word.  Not  that  I  have  the 
slightest  objection  to  legs,  for  I  have  none,  not 
166 


SEX 

the  slightest.  I  cheerfully  acknowledge  their 
aesthetic  quality,  and  can  look  upon  them  with- 
out compunction,  for  there  is  little  of  the 
Puritan  in  my  make-up,  but  I  submit  that  when 
the  aesthetic  need  of  theatre-goers  is  fully  met 
by  attending  an  exhibition  of  legs  the  aesthetic 
need  has  sunk  pretty  low.  And  when  I  observe 
that  literature  with  us  has  come  to  mean  little 
more  than  fiction,  and  fiction  little  more  than 
the  play  of  sex,  it  seems  to  me  time,  and  high 
time,  that  somebody  spoke  out  in  meeting. 
Publishers  and  stage-managers  alike  are  de- 
termined that  our  fiction  and  plays  shall  be 
devoted  mainly  to  matters  pertaining  to  sex, 
and  when  they  excuse  themselves  by  pleading 
that  sex  is  the  only  thing  that  interests  a  ma- 
jority of  modern  readers  and  theatre-goers,  it 
is  peradventure  the  truth  that  they  are  speak- 
ing. But  oh,  the  pity  of  it! 

I  do  not  know  how  long  the  present  dis- 
graceful state  of  things  is  going  to  last,  but 
I  know  that  it  cannot  last  forever.  There  will 
come  a  Ragnarok,  a  twilight  of  the  gods. 
People  will  not  always  be  willing  to  feed  on 
literary  husks.  A  hunger  for  a  more  nutritious 
intellectual  pabulum  will  need  to  be  appeased. 
People  will  tire  of  salacious  plays  that  teach 
167 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

no  genuine  lesson,  the  salacious  plays  which  are 
so  packed  with  stupidities  and  inanities.  The 
need  of  ideals,  of  friendship,  of  spiritual 
verities,  will  dawn  within  their  souls,  and  the 
madness  of  sex-worship  will  pass  away,  when 
the  spirit  awakens,  like  a  horrible  nightmare, 
when  the  eyes  open  to  the  sunlight  and  the  real 
world. 

Of  course,  we  shall  never  lose  our  love  of 
sex,  and  nobody  but  a  mad  ascetic  could  desire 
that  we  should.  We  shall  merely  get  over  the 
superstition  of  sex,  the  monstrous  notion  that 
a  part  can  be  greater  than  the  whole.  When 
lunacy  overtakes  large  groups,  it  is  apt  to  take 
a  sexual  form.  It  did  so  in  the  days  of  the 
French  Revolution,  when  people  began  to  say, 
"There  is  no  God,  death  is  an  eternal  sleep," 
and  they  carried  the  courtesan  in  honor  to 
Notre  Dame.  When  the  French  people  got 
sane  again,  sex  fell  into  its  rightful  place  once 
more,  and  it  is  in  its  rightful  place  where  we 
should  desire  to  see  sex  installed  to-day. 

And  what  is  the  rightful  place  of  sex?  This 
is  not  an  easy  question  to  answer.  But  I  should 
say  that  so  long  as  all  the  other  interests  and 
needs  of  life  were  fully  sustained  and  realized, 
and  we  perceived  that  personality  is  the  thing 
168 


SEX 

chiefly  to  be  loved,  that  sex  might  have  the 
rest  of  the  field  of  consciousness  to  itself.  How 
large  that  field  would  prove  to  be  is  another 
question,  but  it  could  not  fail  to  cover  a  con- 
siderable tract  of  our  human  territory.  We  are 
sexual  in  our  nature,  and  there  is  no  more 
to  be  said  for  the  ascetic  view  of  existence  than 
there  is  for  the  view  that  sex  is  all.  The  notion 
that  has  been  advanced  by  a  group  of  writers, 
that  only  by  the  impact  of  sex  upon  sex  may 
the  true,  the  beautiful  and  the  good  be  known 
is  a  wretched  sophism,  for  he  who  has  been 
inspired  by  the  great  masters  of  the  ages  knows 
that  no  female  influence,  as  such,  was  required 
to  show  him  the  path  that  leads  to  the  Blessed 
Life.  He  did  not  consider  curiously  the  sex  of 
Plato  or  Aristotle  or  Kant  or  Carlyle  or  Emer- 
son or  George  Eliot.  Sex,  to  perform  its  mis- 
sion, does  not  need  to  walk  on  stilts.  It  is  be- 
cause it  has  learned  to  do  so,  that  it  begins 
to  look  a  little  ridiculous  to  one  of  clear  vision. 
To  attack  sex  as  one  of  the  joys  of  life  would 
be  foolish,  and  deservedly  futile.  It  is  only 
when  sex  gets  in  the  way  of  life  that  it  needs 
to  be  restrained.  I  am  certain  that  sex  is  a 
sweetener  of  the  cup  of  life,  but  one  must  not 
therefore  infer  that  there  can  never  be  too 
169 


THE  SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

much  sweetening,  for  there  can  be,  even  to  the 
point  of  danger  from  spiritual  diabetes.  There 
can  be  too  much  love,  and  too  much  love  is  al- 
most as  harmful  as  hate.  Evils  are  to  a  large 
extent  goods  imperfectly  distributed.  Some  get 
too  much;  others  do  not  get  enough.  Love  is 
one  of  these  goods  which  need  to  be  more 
perfectly  distributed,  that  they  may  have  more 
diffusive  power. 

A  philosophy  to  be  sound  must  square  with 
life.  Asceticism  is  an  unsound  philosophy  be- 
cause it  cannot  be  made  to  do  so.  It  fails 
to  realize  that  our  instincts  are  the  products  of 
our  organizations.  It  is  true  that  these  organ- 
izations may  be  defective,  and  sometimes  are. 
Nature  is  not  always  kind,  or  trustworthy. 
The  truth  of  this  statement  may  be  seen  from 
a  consideration  of  the  male  butterflies  of  the 
Bombyx  species.  These  live  for  months  as  cat- 
erpillars, and  sometimes  for  two  years  as  chrys- 
alids,  hibernating  in  a  cocoon  in  some  corner 
of  the  earth,  or  in  the  bark  of  trees.  In  due 
course  of  time,  the  butterfly,  brilliantly  col- 
ored, emerges  from  the  cocoon,  and  spreads 
its  wings,  seeking  with  its  long  antennae  to  de- 
tect the  odor  of  the  female,  which  it  is  able  to 
do  for  a  long  distance.  The  chase  for  the 
170 


SEX 

female  is  participated  in  by  many  competitors, 
and  the  flight  is  usually  a  long  one.  But  each 
of  these  male  butterflies,  whose  sole  object 
in  life,  be  it  said,  is  to  reach  the  female,  and 
enjoy  a  love-triumph,  is  the  victim  of  a  sad 
defect,  for  its  intestinal  tract  is  only  an  abor- 
tion, and,  for  this  reason,  life  cannot  be  long 
sustained.  There  is  but  one  female  to  many 
males,  and  only  one  may  enjpy  her.  Most  of 
the  competitors  in  the  chase  die  of  exhaustion 
before  reaching  the  female,  while  the  success- 
ful one  enjoys  his  triumph  but  for  a  moment, 
and  then  is  forced  to  bow  to  the  dust.  He  has 
lived  for  sex  alone,  as  have  his  brethren,  and 
how  tragic  is  the  outcome!  His  life  must  go 
out,  his  bright  colors  must  fade,  almost  at  the 
moment  of  his  birth.  The  male  bee,  too,  dies 
after  leaving  his  genitals  in  the  body  of  the 
female,  while  there  are  spiders  doomed  to  be 
eaten  by  the  female  as  soon  as  they  have  dem- 
onstrated their  masculinity.  Thus  are  we 
taught  how  little  permanence  is  possessed  by 
an  organization  which  yields  only  the  instinct 
of  passionate  desire  for  sex.  All  infra-human 
life,  on  its  masculine  side,  is,  indeed,  little 
more  than  a  physiological  hunger  of  one  va- 
riety or  another.  A  hunger  for  food,  a  hunger 
171 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

for  sex — this  is  the  historic  life  of  nearly  all 
animals  below  man. 

Man  knows  all  the  physiological  hungers 
also,  but  the  proof  of  his  divine  nature  is  seen 
in  those  spiritual  senses  that  live  in  worlds  un- 
realized. He  is  able  to  study  his  nature,  and, 
in  some  measure,  to  understand  it.  He  knows 
that  sex  is  not  a  good  in  itself,  but  merely  a 
means  to  the  good.  Life  in  all  its  breadth 
and  meaning  is  the  only  good.  Biologically, 
sex  exists  for  the  purpose  of  producing  prog- 
eny who  shall  carry  on  the  work  of  their 
elders  when  these  elders  shall  pass  from 
the  earthly  scene.  Psychologically,  sex  is  a 
stimulant  and  fertilizer  of  life.  Some  one  said 
of  Herbert  Spencer  that  he  was  not  a  man, 
but  an  intellect;  nevertheless,  if  Herbert  Spen- 
cer had  never  gratified  the  physiological  hun- 
ger for  food,  or  had  never  possessed  it,  those 
stout  volumes  of  the  Synthetic  Philosophy 
would  never  have  been  written.  And  it  is 
doubtless  true  also  that  much  of  the  richness 
which  belongs  to  our  Art  and  refined  ways  of 
living  has  come  from  the  appeasement  of  sex- 
ual hunger.  One  can  hardly  be  a  poet,  or  an 
artist  in  any  field  of  endeavor,  if  he  starve  his 
senses.  One  requires  inspiration  even  to  think. 
173 


SEX 

One  must  learn  to  love  a  part,  before  he  can 
so  much  as  dream  of  loving  the  whole.  Sex 
is  not  all,  as  some  misguided  enthusiasts  would 
have  us  believe,  but  the  person  who  asserts 
that  he  or  she  has  risen  above  sex  is  breath- 
ing in  an  atmosphere  of  lunacy  through  every 
pore.  We  do  not  become  divine  through  for- 
saking the  human ;  we  do  not  become  gods  and 
goddesses  through  a  refusal  to  play  here  and 
now  the  parts  of  men  and  women.  I  know  that 
there  are  wiseacres  who  affect  to  despise  physi- 
ology, because  they  fancy  that  they  have  mas- 
tered psychology,  but  from  what  source,  will 
they  please  tell  us,  did  physiology  come,  if  not 
out  of  the  soul?  Edmund  Spenser  was  wiser 
when  he  wrote 

"For  soul  is  form,  and  doth  the  body  make." 
Not  by  rejecting  our  bodies  and  despising  our 
instincts  shall  we  conquer  Utopia,  or  gain  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Nirvana  is  not  an  ideal 
for  one  who  wishes  to  be  a  master  of  life. 
Lack  of  desire  is  not  a  mastery  of  life;  it  is  a 
negation  of  life.  To  be  a  live  brute  were  bet- 
ter than  to  be  a  lifeless  Buddha.  The  poor 
Bombyx  butterfly,  with  no  thought  in  his  little 
nerve  ganglia  but  to  enjoy  his  female,  and 
dying  for  lack  of  a  proper  intestinal  tract,  is 
173 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

more  inspiring  than  an  epicene  preaching  epi- 
cene morality.  The  true  philosopher  will  shun 
nothing  except  narrowness,  and  he  will  take 
all  life  for  the  province  of  his  interest  and 
love. 

If  I  have  seemed  at  times  to  speak  rather 
slightingly  of  sex,  it  is  not  because  I  have  any 
sympathy  with  those  who  have  sought  to  crush 
their  sexual  instinct,  for  I  have  none,  but  be- 
cause I  would  fain  have  men  and  women  re- 
member that  sex  is  not  all,  or  even  the  main 
thing,  of  life.  For,  sooner  or  later,  the  great 
truth  is  brought  home  to  us  with  irresistible 
force  that  the  individual  by  himself  is  noth- 
ing, that  the  desires  of  the  individual,  unless 
they  bear  some  relation  to  the  welfare  of  the 
whole,  are  also  nothing.  The  world  must 
learn  the  meaning  of  Augustine's  noble  apos- 
trophe to  God:  "Thou  hast  made  us  for  thy- 
self, and  we  are  restless  until  we  find  rest 
in  thee."  There  shall  indeed  be  no  rest  for 
our  weary  hearts,  until  we  shall  have  been  bap- 
tized in  the  divine  ocean  of  the  ideal.  And 
what  is  this  divine  ocean  of  the  ideal,  but  Hu- 
manity, past,  present  and  to  come!  Not  in 
the  love  of  one  man  for  one  woman,  or  of  one 
woman  for  one  man,  or  in  the  love  of  a  few 
174 


SEX 

individuals  for  one  another,  is  human  nature 
whole;  but  in  the  vision  of  a  Humanity  in 
which  every  excellence  is  incarnated  shall  be 
found  a  love  destined  to  bud  and  blossom  in 
cosmic  beauty.  Whatsoever  makes  us  strong 
with  the  strength  of  Humanity,  and  noble  with 
the  nobility  of  Humanity,  is  the  Highest  Good. 
To  be  a  lover  of  the  All  is  spiritual  perfection. 
Our  individual  affections  are  of  value  to  just 
the  extent  that  they  open  up  for  us  a  pathway 
to  the  universal.  To  look  into  the  eyes  of  a 
man  and  not  to  see  anything  beyond  them,  to 
look  into  the  eyes  of  a  woman  and  not  to 
see  anything  beyond  them,  is  to  miss  the  les- 
son that  we  are  on  earth  to  learn.  But  when 
an  individual  becomes  for  us  a  lens,  through 
which  one  may  behold  the  immeasurable  heav- 
ens break  open  to  their  highest,  the  real  value 
of  the  individual  has  been  discovered.  I  can- 
not indorse  the  ascetic  ideal  that  holds  the  love 
of  man  for  woman  to  be  but  a  snare  for  the 
spirit.  The  great  poetry  of  Dante  alone  is 
sufficient  to  refute  so  baseless  a  claim,  and  a 
thousand  details  of  the  common  lot  are  suf- 
ficient also.  Nor  can  I  say  that  the  passion 
which  man  has  felt  for  man,  now  held  to  be 
lawless  and  forbidden,  is  of  the  Devil,  rather 
175 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

than  of  God.  There  are  words  in  the  writings 
of  Plato,  the  great  poet-philosopher  of  Greece, 
and  there  is  the  wonderful  civilization  of 
Greece  itself,  to  shatter  the  modern  delusion. 
There  is,  indeed,  but  one  test  to  be  applied  to 
all  passion,  by  whatsoever  name  it  may  be 
called,  or  howsoever  regarded,  and  that  is  the 
effect  of  the  passion  upon  those  individuals 
who  experience  its  rapture.  So  far  as  any  pas- 
sion narrows  our  regard  for  the  great  whole 
of  living  truth,  beauty  and  goodness,  it  is  evil; 
in  so  far  as  it  enlarges  our  regard,  it  is  good. 
History  shows  that  passion  of  all  kinds  has 
done  both,  and  so  do  the  facts  of  daily  experi- 
ence. In  the  last  analysis,  the  good  and  evil 
of  passion  will  be  found  to  lie  in  the  nature 
of  the  individuals  themselves  who  are  its  in- 
carnation. 


176 


LITERATURE    AND    DEMOCRACY 

f  I  VHE  past  few  years  have  witnessed  the  ex- 
•^  tinction  of  more  than  one  great  literary 
light,  and  the  passing  of  Swinburne  and  Mere- 
dith, of  Bjornson  and  Tolstoy,  has  done  more 
than  to  call  attention  to  departed  genius,  and  to 
the  glory  of  an  era  that  is  no  more.  It  has 
awakened,  indeed,  a  melancholy  conviction  that 
literary  genius  is  almost  extinct.  It  is  true  that 
writers  like  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  Mr.  H.  G. 
Wells,  M.  Maeterlinck  and  Herr  Sudermann 
have  their  admirers,  and  even  their  disciples, 
but  there  is  a  feeling,  nevertheless,  in  many 
quarters  that  the  insight  which  these  men  pos- 
sess is  an  insight  into  nooks  and  crannies  rather 
than  an  insight  into  life  in  its  largeness  and 
wholeness. 

Contemporary  Literature  is  indeed  ailing. 
The  mantles  of  the  dead  literary  giants  have 
not  fallen  on  the  men  and  women  who  are  now 
engaged  in  cultivating  the  literary  gardens — 
not  on  many  of  them,  at  any  rate.  There  are 
177 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

few  books  which  come  from  the  press  with  any 
promise  of  immortality.  The  average  tome 
is  cursed  with  incurable  sterility.  The  hungry 
sheep  of  the  reading  public,  who  look  to  con- 
temporary writers  for  inspiration,  are  not  fed. 
Verse  that  is  thin,  fiction  that  is  still  thinner, 
and  plays  that  are  absolutely  inane,  are  the 
intellectual  diet  to  which  the  age  is  becoming 
accustomed.  To  say  nothing  vital,  to  eschew 
distinction,  to  revel  in  mediocrity  and  common- 
place, is  the  fashion  of  the  hour  in  the  field  of 
Literature.  It  may  be  that  a  majority  of  read- 
ers are  satisfied  with  this  drivel,  there  may  be 
few  who  look  for,  or  desire,  anything  better, 
but  the  lovers  of  real  Literature,  the  men  and 
women  who  believe  that  great  books  are  rev- 
elations, Bibles,  indeed,  of  the  divine  spirit  in 
man,  stand  almost  aghast  at  the  intellectual 
paralysis  which  has  crept  over  and  struck  down 
those  who  should  be  the  masters  of  art. 

A  truly  great  writer,  whether  of  poetry  or 
fiction,  or  whatsoever  else  may  belong  to  the 
Literature  of  power,  as  distinguished  from  the 
Literature  of  knowledge,  to  use  De  Quincey's 
division,  is  always  one  who  inspires  us  with 
a  sense  of  the  largeness  of  life,  or  with  the 
greatness  of  his  own  personality.  Sophocles 
178 


LITERATURE   AND  DEMOCRACY 

takes  us  to  the  roof  of  the  world,  where  we 
may  survey  the  working  of  the  moral  laws  that 
govern  the  individual  in  his  relations  to  the 
World.  Dante  glimpses  the  deeps  of  Man's 
moral  nature.  Shakespeare  fairly  pelts  the 
reader  with  the  exuberance  of  his  creative 
imagination.  Goethe  breathes  the  spirit  of 
the  highest  human  culture.  Sir  Walter  Scott 
glows  in  the  grandeur  of  noble  conduct 
and  great  heroisms.  Wordsworth  penetrates 
far  into  the  human  soul,  and  discovers  na- 
ture inscribed  therein.  Victor  Hugo  is  on 
fire  with  a  humane  impulse.  Dickens  smites 
the  chords  of  humor  and  pathos.  Carlyle 
revels  in  the  immensities  and  veracities  of 
being.  Emerson  reports  faithfully  the  vis- 
ions and  meditations  of  his  moods.  Whitman 
sings  his  comradeship  into  our  heart  of  hearts. 
In  one  way  or  another,  each  of  these  men  has 
fulfilled  some  true  and  noble  function  of  litera- 
ture and  has  taught  us  to  know  a  great  book 
when  we  read  it.  Have  not  serious  and  intelli- 
gent readers,  then,  a  just  grievance,  if,  in  their 
reading  of  most  contemporary  writers,  they 
fail  to  find  the  qualities  that  quicken  the  human 
pulse  with  the  joy  of  vigorous  and  commanding 
life,  or  personality?  It  seems  to  me  that  they 
179 


THE  SPIRIT   OF  LIFE 

have.  There  are,  it  is  true,  no  two  men  whose 
genius  is  quite  the  same,  and  if  there  were,  one 
of  them  would  be  superfluous,  but  genius  of 
some  sort  a  writer  must  possess  if  his  work 
would  compel  intelligent  attention.  And  if  a 
writer  have  not  genius,  and  know  not  other- 
wise how  to  earn  his  bread  than  by  writing  bal- 
derdash, an  enlightened  society  would  gener- 
ously pension  him  as  a  reward  for  silence. 

Now  if  it  be  true,  as  it  is,  that  contemporary 
Literature  is  ailing,  if  our  writers  do  not  in- 
spire and  bring  home  to  us  the  feeling  that  life 
is  large  and  their  own  souls  heroic,  whose  is 
the  fault?  Does  it  lie  in  the  writers  them- 
selves? Or  in  the  public?  Or  in  both?  Or 
shall  it  be  said  that  life  has  diminished  since 
the  elder  days  of  art,  and  that  human  person- 
alities have  dwindled  almost  to  the  vanishing 
point?  It  is  useless  for  critics  to  tell  us  that 
literary  eras  have  always  been  succeeded  by 
eras  of  literary  sterility,  for,  even  if  this  be 
true,  it  should  not  be  accepted  as  an  inevitable 
condition  of  humanity;  rather  should  it  be  re- 
garded as  a  disgraceful  fact  of  history  that  the 
intelligence  of  the  race  must  overcome,  unless 
we  are  to  believe  that  geniuses  are  a  fixed  quan- 
tity, few  in  number,  who  condescend  to  visit 
180 


LITERATURE   AND   DEMOCRACY 

the  earth  only  during  the  propitious  seasons. 
Such  a  theory  might  be  satisfactory  to  the  de- 
votees of  certain  esoteric  philosophies  and  re- 
ligions, but  it  will  not  be  accepted  by  persons 
who  find  only  too  much  evidence  that  Genius  is 
wasted  every  year  and  every  day,  as  if  it  were 
of  no  more  importance  than  the  dead  leaves 
of  October  which  are  hurled  hither  and  thither 
by  the  roaring  winds.  The  world  is  always 
full  of  young  men  who  give  promise  of  noble 
performance,  yet,  in  the  end,  most  ingloriously 
fail.  Again,  I  ask,  whose  is  the  fault,  if,  in 
this  present  year,  the  last  of  nature's  perennial 
miracles,  there  be  among  us  little  genius  of 
achievement  visible;  nothing,  indeed,  for  the 
most  part,  but  a  waste-plot  of  dull  and  com- 
monplace conventionalities,  stupidly  posing  as 
men  of  letters? 

There  can  be,  I  think,  but  one  answer  to 
the  question  which  will  cover  the  larger  num- 
ber of  observed  facts.  Our  answer  must  be 
that  present  day  Democracy  does  not  care  for 
great  Literature.  When  theatrical  managers 
tell  us  that  the  production  of  Shakespeare's 
plays,  or  other  classical  pieces,  means  ruin  to 
them;  when  publishers  demand  of  an  author 
that  he  write  down  to  the  level  of  plebeian  and 
181 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

silly  feminine  taste;  when  the  majesty  of  the 
law  is  invoked  whenever  a  master  dares  to 
paint  life  as  it  is,  or  even  as  it  ought,  in  his 
opinion,  to  be;  we  find  the  reasons,  or  some 
of  the  reasons,  why  our  Literature  is  suffering 
from  a  dearth  of  distinction.  Books  to  be 
published  must  be  written  to  gratify  the  mob, 
and  if  the  mob  prefers,  as  it  usually  does, 
mediocre  poems,  mediocre  novels,  and  even 
mediocre  meditations  on  life,  its  preference  will 
be  respected  by  the  whole  bread-and-butter- 
brigade  of  Literature,  because  of  that  whimsi- 
cal notion  of  publishers  which  makes  them  pre- 
fer the  gold  of  fools  to  the  copper  of  the  wise. 
The  finer  tastes  must  die  of  inanition,  that  the 
coarser  tastes  may  have  their  surfeit.  The 
mortifying  truth  is  that  our  age  is  not  favor- 
ably inclined  toward  genius,  and  loves  not 
overmuch  a  virile  personality  in  any  sphere 
outside  of  business.  Anything  more  vulgar 
and  materialistic  than  our  American  Democ- 
racy it  would  be  difficult  to  find. 

The  modern  world  is  committed  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  Democracy,  but  this  fact  should  not 
blind  us  to  the  faults  of  Democracy.  There 
never  has  been  a  Democracy  in  the  history  of 
the  world  that  was  very  wise — not  one.  Greece 
182 


LITERATURE   AND   DEMOCRACY 

may  seem  an  exception,  and  Greece  was  indeed 
the  wisest  Democracy  that  the  ages  have 
known;  yet  even  the  wisest  of  democracies  ban- 
ished Anaxagoras  and  Aristides,  and  con- 
demned Socrates  to  drink  the  hemlock.  There 
may  be  in  the  womb  of  the  future  a  Democracy 
that  shall  live  in  the  spirit  of  a  larger  gospel 
than  any  gospel  accepted  in  the  past;  such  a 
Democracy  may  reverence  all  genius  as  soon  as 
it  is  visible;  but  let  us  not  anchor  our  faith 
to  any  past  or  present  Democracy.  It  still  re- 
mains true  that  we  have  the  profane  herd  that 
Horace  scorned.  It  is  an  eternal  fact,  as  Car- 
lyle  so  strenuously  insisted,  that  history  is  what 
great  men  have  done.  The  Greece  that  cul- 
ture drowns  is  the  Greece  of  the  poets,  the 
sculptors  and  the  philosophic  masters,  the  men 
who  created  the  thoughts  and  ideals  that  paint 
the  golden  years  of  Literature  and  art.  Henry 
James,  the  elder,  indeed  wrote  that  the  only 
man  recorded  in  history  whom  he  should  re- 
gard as  a  privilege  to  meet  in  the  world  beyond 
our  bank  and  shoal  of  time,  was  the  nameless 
personage  whose  sole  distinction  is  that  he 
voted  to  banish  Aristides,  because  he  was  tired 
of  hearing  him  called  the  just,  a  privilege  that 
I  hope  has  long  since  been  granted;  but  loy- 
183 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

alty  to  truth  compels  me  to  assert  that,  not- 
withstanding the  enthusiasm  aroused  in  the 
breast  of  his  American  admirer,  considerably 
more  than  two  millenniums  after  his  career  was 
ended,  by  the  unknown  Greek  whose  vote 
helped  to  swell  the  total  that  drove  Aristides 
the  Just  into  exile,  it  was  not  such  as  this  recal- 
citrant that  made  the  Greece  of  history,  the 
Greece  of  our  artistic  dreams  and  noblest  de- 
spair. The  Greek  heroes  of  art,  oratory,  phil- 
osophy and  statecraft  still  remain  the  Hellenic 
members  of  the  "choir  invisible,"  whose  music 
has  become  a  part  of  the  gladness  of  the  mod- 
ern world. 

Nevertheless,  one  must  not  forget  that  Dem- 
ocracy is  here,  and  is  here  to  stay.  It  is  the 
central  fact  of  our  modern  world.  Democ- 
racy is  become  the  arbiter  of  the  world's  des- 
tiny. In  its  favor  is  life.  In  its  wrath  is  death. 
The  literary  man  of  to-day  must  please  or  in- 
spire this  Democracy,  or  he  will  starve.  And 
he  deserves  to  starve,  if  he  does  not  try  to 
nobly  please  and  inspire  it,  for  that  is  the  di- 
vine task  he  is  called  upon  to  perform  in  these 
early  years  of  the  twentieth  century,  the  task 
that  he  will  be  called  upon  to  perform  in  all 
the  years  that  shall  succeed  the  twentieth  cen- 
184 


LITERATURE   AND   DEMOCRACY 

tury.  The  people — even  the  worst  of  them' — • 
are  his  world.  Hegel's  doctrine  of  the  unity 
of  subject  and  object,  and  of  their  development 
pari  passu,  is  an  excellent  one  for  the  literary 
worker  to  recall.  Without  a  world  of  objects, 
his  mind  would,  like  every  other  mind,  be  prac- 
tically, if  not  literally,  nothing.  It  is  true  that 
a  prosaic  age  has  a  very  depressing  effect  upon 
an  intelligence  naturally  poetic  and  creative. 
One  fancies  that  Thomas  Gray,  and  perhaps 
Robert  Burns,  would  have  sung  greater  songs 
if  they  had  lived  in  a  larger  and  more  poetic 
environment.  But  it  is  the  sublime  privilege 
of  the  artist — his  heaven-born  gift — to  find  in- 
spiration in  what  often  seems  most  unpromis- 
ing. He  must  see  truth  where  no  other  man 
has  seen  it.  He  must  see  beauty  where  no  other 
man  has  seen  it.  He  must  see  goodness  where 
no  other  man  has  seen  it.  In  the  world  about 
him,  with  only  such  help  as  the  life  of  the  ages 
has  added  to  his  own  unique  vision,  the  poet 
must  find  his  poem  and  the  romancer  his  ro- 
mance. God  help  them  if  they  fail,  for  failure 
to  find  poetry  and  romance  in  whatsoever  age 
one  may  live  is  the  spiritual  death  of  the  artist. 
I  have  apparently  landed  myself  in  one  of 
those  self-contradictions  that  are  said  to  be 
185 


THE  SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

characteristic  of  German  philosophers,  for  I 
have  admitted  that  all  Democracy  has  slain, 
and  continues  to  slay,  genius,  yet  maintained 
that  our  writers  must  find  their  poems  and  ro- 
mances in  the  very  Democracy  which  has  been 
so  cruel  to  them.  But  the  contradiction  is  only 
apparent,  not  real,  for  it  is  the  sublimest  proof 
of  genius  that  its  eye  can  see  within  and  beyond 
the  obvious  a  spiritual  meaning  that  the  masses, 
for  lack  of  genius,  are  unable  to  see.  Every 
man,  no  matter  how  small  he  may  appear  to 
his  contemporaries,  or  even  to  himself,  looms 
large  in  the  vision  of  a  great  poet,  of  one  who 
perceives  the  real  self  and  the  mighty  possi- 
bilities of  him.  The  man  who  would  immor- 
talise himself  in  this  democratic  age  must  see 
the  larger  self  of  even  the  most  commonplace 
clodhopper.  Of  course,  he  will  have  no  illu- 
sions concerning  him.  He  will  know,  as  every- 
body else  knows,  that  the  man  is  a  clodhopper, 
but  he  will  also  know,  what  is  not  so  evident, 
that  the  man  is  an  avenue,  leading  backward 
indeed  to  the  trackless  waste  of  chaos,  but  lead- 
ing onward  to  no  lesser  grandeur  than  the  in- 
visible City  of  God.  It  is  the  glory  of  Words- 
worth and  Burns  that  they  saw,  what  hardly 
any  one  else  did  see  in  their  times,  the  poem  in 
186 


LITERATURE   AND  DEMOCRACY 

the  simple  dalesman  and  the  cotter,  the  poem 
for  which  a  man  like  Pope  would  never  have 
ventured  to  look,  and  would  never  have  found, 
even  if  he  had  cast  his  vision  in  their  direction. 
It  is  often  said  as  a  jest  at  Walt  Whitman's 
expense,  that  the  common  people  whom  he 
apotheosised  spurned  him  and  preferred  the 
poets  of  more  aristocratic  temper,  while  sym- 
pathetic appreciation  of  his  work  came  only 
from  those  to  whom  he  was  supposed  in  the 
morning  of  his  career  to  be  antipathetic.  This 
is  very  true,  but  one  must  not  therefore  infer 
that  Whitman's  Democracy  is  an  hallucination. 
Ever}'  great  poet  and  seer  is  a  martyr.  He  has 
always  been  nailed  to  a  cross.  But,  even  as 
the  Hebrew  poet  expressed  faith  in  his  God, 
by  saying,  "Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust 
in  him,"  so  must  the  poet  of  to-day  have  faith 
in  the  ultimate  goodness  of  Demos.  He  may 
be  slain,  he  will  certainly,  if  original,  meet  with 
flouts  and  jeers  sufficient  to  terrify  all  except 
the  hardiest,  but  if  his  faith  endures  to  the 
end,  he  shall  be  saved  from  the  literary  Ge- 
henna, and,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  will  find 
his  place  in  the  Pantheon  of  the  Heart. 

This  mighty  Democracy,  vulgar,  brutal,  and 
often  vicious,  harbors  a  modern  sphinx,  with 
187 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

a  fiddle  to  propound  to  every  literary  aspirant. 
The  question  of  our  sphinx  is:  "Have  I  a 
soul?"  The  everlasting  literary  welfare  of 
the  writer  is  determined  by  his  answer.  If  he 
say  that  he  does  not  know,  or  if  he  give  the 
wrong  answer,  nothing  can  save  him  from  the 
wrath  of  the  Sphinx.  Only  he  who  sees  that 
Democracy  has  a  soul  is  safe,  for  the  Sphinx 
of  Democracy  reads  the  spirit  of  the  future, 
which  the  true  priest  of  Literature  will  address. 
The  question  rightly  answered  will  cause  the 
sphinx  of  the  question  to  slay  herself  as  the 
Sphinx  of  old  did,  but  the  modern  sphinx  will 
die  only  to  her  vulgarity,  brutality  and  vicious- 
ness.  Otherwise  she  will  remain  very  much 
alive,  and  with  many  new  riddles  demanding 
solution.  Even  in  the  welter  of  falsehood, 
ugliness,  and  all  other  diabolism  that  threatens 
at  times  to  engulf  whatsoever  is  true,  pure, 
beautiful  and  of  good  report  among  us,  one 
may  find  pearls  and  gems,  if  one  but  looks  for 
them.  As  Emerson  said,  there  is  always  some- 
thing singing  in  the  very  mud  and  scum  of 
things.  The  spirit  of  sweetness  and  light  is 
not  found  in  him  who  never  searches  for 
values,  save  in  the  abysses  of  the  past.  Such 
an  one  mdy  tinkle  forth  a  profusion  of  rhymes, 
188 


LITERATURE   AND   DEMOCRACY 

and  fill  a  yard  or  two  of  space  in  public  libra- 
ries, but  the  truth  and  beauty  of  life  are  not 
deeply  ingrained  within  him,  and  his  work  will 
fade  away  as  soon  as  men's  minds  are  pierced 
by  the  first  bright  arrows  of  the  new  intellec- 
tual dawn.  It  is  not  easy  to  exaggerate  the 
importance  of  antiquity,  of  those  great  masters 
who  dwelt  on  the  banks  of  the  Ilissus  and  the 
Tiber,  but  the  culture  of  the  past  is  never  truly 
reincarnated  on  these  modern  shores,  save  in 
men  who  rejoice  to  feel  the  breath  of  new 
mornings  upon  their  cheeks. 

Our  democratic  society  makes  heavier  de- 
mands upon  the  individual  than  were  ever 
levied  by  the  aristocratic  societies  of  the  past. 
The  task  of  the  literary  worker  of  to-day,  if 
he  would  fulfil  his  function  worthily,  is  likewise 
harder.  The  writings  of  Goethe  were  only  for 
the  cultured  few;  Shakespeare  had  only  a 
small  class  to  please  and  inspire;  Sophocles  and 
^schylus  labored  for  a  society  so  small  that 
an  Athenian  theatre  held  it;  but  the  writer  of 
to-day  must  fascinate  and  inspire  the  teeming 
millions  of  the  globe.  The  Greek  heroes,  the 
kings  of  Shakespeare,  and  the  characters  of 
Goethe  must  now  find  their  place  in  the  crowd; 
they  must  join  the  millions  who  have  learned 
189 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

to  speak,  in  some  measure,  the  grand  accents 
of  liberty  and  equality,  and  reverently,  yet 
boldly,  proclaim  the  genius  of  the  Galilean 
mount  and  lake  their  brother. 

The  writer  who  would  be  true  to  the  vital 
principles  of  Democracy  will  never  flatter  the 
vices  and  littlenesses  of  democratic  society.  If 
he  does  flatter  vice  and  littleness,  he  will  doubt- 
less receive  his  reward  in  the  merry  popping  of 
champagne  corks,  in  groaning  festive  boards 
and  substantial  cheques,  together  with  such 
other  favors  as  time  has  in  store  for  those  who 
seek  only  the  gratifications  of  the  passing  hour, 
and  to  obtain  them  are  willing  to  indulge  in 
demagogic  antics;  but  if  he  be  a  master,  he 
will  seek  rather  the  rewards  of  the  eternities, 
by  speaking  the  truth  and  by  singing  the  beauty 
of  the  substance  that  lies  within  and  beyond 
the  shadow.  I  know  how  hard,  and  even  piti- 
less, it  is  to  charge  the  poet  and  the  romancer, 
or  whatsoever  kind  of  artist  one  may  be,  to 
follow  implicitly  and  explicitly  the  light  and 
leading  of  the  idealistic  gospel  that  illumines 
our  pathway  on  the  rugged  steeps  of  life,  yet 
reveals,  in  that  illumination,  how  dry  is  the 
dust  and  jagged  are  the  rocks  over  which  he 
must  pass,  for  if  the  physiology  of  Man  be  not 
190 


LITERATURE   AND  DEMOCRACY 

real,  it  is,  to  use  a  philosophic  distinction,  at 
least  actual;  and  the  hungry  and  weary  poets 
and  tale-bearers,  no  less  than  the  hewers  of 
wood  and  drawers  of  water,  require  their  bed 
and  board.  Nevertheless,  the  hero  will  not 
flinch.  Society  has  usually  starved  the  bodies 
of  our  poets,  and  she  has  also  starved  their 
souls,  which  was  an  even  greater  offence,  yet, 
somehow  or  other,  the  poet,  whether  he  have 
spoken  through  the  medium  of  verse,  or 
through  the  medium  of  prose,  if  once  he  have 
caught  a  vision  of  those  towers  of  the  intel- 
lect which  reflect  the  radiance  of  the  City  of 
the  Soul,  whose  beatitudes  are  tabernacled  in 
the  hearts  of  all  truth-seekers  and  lovers  of 
beauty,  never  averts  his  face  from  the  fields 
consecrated  and  made  elysian  through  his  di- 
vinest  dreaming,  but,  though  beaten  sore  in 
body,  and  even  with  his  life  emaciated,  it  may 
be,  from  rough  usage  and  society's  sad  misun- 
derstanding of  him,  goes  to  his  work,  or  to  his 
death,  with  a  celestial  fire  burning  in  his  heart, 
which  all  the  bleak,  desolate  waters  of  Ma- 
terialism have  no  power  to  quench.  There 
are,  forsooth,  two  kinds  of  poets,  and  of  art- 
ists in  general.  (All  artists  are  poets,  how- 
ever.) There  is  the  poet  who  once  caught  a 
191 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

radiant  gleam  of  pure  beauty,  or  beauty  in 
truth  and  goodness,  and  was  so  charmed  with 
his  vision  that  he  desired  to  inform  the  world 
of  his  miraculous  fortune,  but,  when  he  found 
that  the  people  did  not  listen,  became  con- 
vinced that  his  vision  was  only  a  mirage,  and 
then,  weary  and  heart-sick,  drifted  back  into 
"the  light  of  common  day."  This  type  of 
poet  is  the  bud  which  the  frosts  of  society 
kill,  and  how  much  of  beauty  and  of  inspiring 
worth  the  world  has  lost  thereby  can  never 
be  computed.  But,  fortunately,  there  is  an- 
other, though  almost  infinitely  rarer  type  of 
poet,  who  has  seen  too  clearly  and  too  deeply 
ever  to  forsake  his  vision  for  the  meaner  things 
of  a  materialistic  age.  This  kind  of  poet  has 
toiled  on,  though,  as  history  knows  him,  he 
has  been  poor,  half-starved,  rebuked,  ostra- 
cised, or  condemned,  it  may  be,  to  the  prison 
or  the  flames;  yet  glad  of  the  privilege  af- 
forded by  life  to  voice  what  he  has  seen;  and 
ready  to  go,  if  need  be,  swiftly  to  his  grave,  if 
the  transcendent  gift  were  still  in  his  posses- 
sion. While  such  poets  have  been  uncommon, 
they  have  been  the  salt  of  the  earth,  and  only 
through  them  shall  our  Democracy  learn  its 
real  nature,  which  is  not  a  howling  and  irre- 
192 


LITERATURE   AND  DEMOCRACY 

sponsible  mob,  but  a  society  in  which  every 
man  is  potentially  a  king,  a  prophet,  a  priest, 
a  poet.  We  have  genius  among  us  now,  genius 
that  we  kill  almost  as  soon  as  it  begins  to  mani- 
fest itself;  but  when  shall  we  witness  again  the 
genius  whose  vision  the  ignorance  of  society 
has  no  power  to  kill,  the  genius  that  shall  re- 
deem us  from  our  intellectual  weakness? 

One  of  the  greatest  needs  of  our  Democ- 
racy is  a  cultured  class  possessing  high  ideals, 
that  will,  through  its  independence  of  financial 
storm  and  stress,  be  able  to  endow  us  with  in- 
tellectual wealth  and  romantic  beauty.  Men 
like  Goethe,  Byron,  Shelley,  Browning  and 
Hugo  had  private  means  that  enabled  them  to 
do  their  work  under  favorable  conditions. 
More  than  is  generally  thought  the  world  owes 
to  high-minded  men  of  leisure,  who  sang  their 
songs  and  proclaimed  their  messages  for  the 
delectation  of  future  generations,  if  not  of 
their  own  time.  Unfortunately  for  us  in  Amer- 
ica, those  who  should  be  our  leisure  class  arc 
still,  for  the  most  part,  seduced  by  the  siren 
voice  that  lures  men  on  to  seek  greater  material 
wealth.  The  millionaire  must  be  a  multi-mil- 
lionaire, and  next  a  billionaire.  If  the  seduc- 
tions of  wealth  fail  to  allure  this  or  that  man 
193 


THE    SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

of  wealth  among  us,  it  is  usually  not  poetic 
beauty  or  romance  that  he  woos  assiduously, 
but  the  sensualities.  He  does  not  worship 
Apollo,  or  cultivate  the  society  of  the  Muses. 
His  only  divinity  is  Venus  Pandemus. 

The  failure  of  great  Literature  to  appear  at 
this  juncture  is  due  to  the  lowness  of  our  gen- 
eral ideals.  Neither  the  masses  nor  the  classes 
have  any  ideals  worthy  of  the  name;  hence  the 
Artist  is  between  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea. 
Goethe  said  that  all  the  great  ages  have  been 
ages  of  faith.  We  live  in  a  faithless  age. 
Here  and  there  a  person  whose  intellect  has 
been  fed  by  the  literary  granaries  of  the  past 
still  holds  to  truth,  beauty  and  romance,  but 
he  is  like  a  man  in  the  arctic  zone  endeavoring 
to  keep  from  freezing  by  reading  tales  of  the 
tropics.  There  is  no  confirmation  of  his 
psychic  vision  in  the  actualities  his  senses  re- 
port. The  evil  of  our  age  may  be  summed  up 
in  one  word — materialism.  Whether  rich  or 
poor,  old  or  young,  male  or  female,  the  aver- 
age person  among  us  is  a  practical  materialist. 
The  creed  of  Haeckel  may  not  be  explicitly 
proclaimed,  and  it  seldom  is,  but  the  common 
speech  of  men  to-day  betrays  them,  and  reveals 
the  hollowness  of  the  faith  that  may  be  pub- 
194 


LITERATURE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

licly  professed.  Faith  must  come  to  us  once 
more,  faith  not  in  money,  but  in  great  ideals, 
before  the  meadows  of  Literature  shall  again 
be  spotted  with  flowers  of  gorgeous  color. 

There  is  one  great  mystery  of  life  to  which 
science  can  find  no  solution,  and  which  meta- 
physicians are  apt  to  leave  even  darker.  I 
refer  to  the  paradox  involved  in  human  per- 
sonality. Whether  we  accept  the  orthodox 
theory  of  Monism,  or  the  heterodox  theory  of 
Pluralism,  as  held,  in  one  form  or  another,  by 
Professor  Howison,  Mr.  Schiller,  Mr.  Mc- 
Taggart,  and  the  late  Professor  James,  there 
still  remain  perplexities  enough  to  puzzle 
us.  The  theory  of  idealistic  Monism,  if  logic- 
ally developed  to  its  ultimates,  certainly  de- 
stroys the  freedom  of  the  individual,  and,  if 
individuals  are  not  free,  they  are  merely  pup- 
pets. To  say  that  they  are  fragments,  or  frag- 
mentary manifestations,  of  One  Absolute  Per- 
son, or  Mind,  does  not  help  the  matter  any. 
The  dignity  of  man  requires,  as  Professor 
Howison  has  clearly  pointed  out,  that  Man 
shall  have  life  in  himself.  And  while  the  dif- 
ficulties of  Pluralism  are  numerous,  I  am  con- 
strained to  believe  that,  upon  the  whole,  they 
are  less  difficult  than  the  difficulties  of  the  op- 
195 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

posite  theory.  I  cannot  avoid  the  conviction 
that  the  uniqueness  which  we  witness  in  every 
empirical  ego  is  a  part  of  metaphysical  reality. 
Monism  is  a  rational  theory  for  those  who 
believe  in  despotism,  in  the  kingdom,  or  the 
empire;  it  is  not  a  rational  theory  for  those 
who  believe  in  a  democratic  republic,  which 
means,  when  carried  to  its  logical  ultimate,  the 
supremacy  of  each  individual  over  himself. 
No  two  men  are  alike;  no  two  have  quite  the 
same  vision  of  the  world;  and  the  more  nearly 
men  approach  to  the  heights  of  genius,  the 
more  unique  they  are  seen  to  be.  No  one  ever 
mistook  Swinburne  for  Mr,  Watts-Dunton,  or 
'Dice  versa,  although  both  were  poets,  critics, 
scholars,  friends,  and  house-mates  for  many 
years.  Hegel  seems  to  be  clearly  right  in  his 
contention  that  a  mind  without  a  world  is  noth- 
ing, but  no  amount  of  philosophic  scepticism, 
or  metaphysical  word-juggling,  can  sweep  aside 
the  stupendous  fact  of  personality,  paradoxical 
as  the  fact  of  personality  is.  The  problem  of 
personality  is  of  vital  importance  to  Democ- 
racy, and,  indirectly,  to  Literature,  and,  for 
this  reason,  I  am  going  to  suggest  what  may 
be  a  partial,  though  not  an  entire,  solution  of 
the  mystery.  And  this  suggestion  is  that  the 
196 


LITERATURE   AND   DEMOCRACY 

world,  which  looks  so  solid  and  everywhere 
identical,  may  be,  in  reality,  only  a  partial 
fusion  of  an  infinitude  of  different  points  of 
view,  each  point  of  view  being  the  uniqueness 
of  a  person,  or  individual  mind. 

To  present  this  philosophical  theory  ade- 
quately would  require  an  essay.  I  merely  refer 
to  it  here,  because  it  seems  to  explain  in  part 
the  necessity  for  Democracy.  The  conception 
of  an  Absolute  doubtless  has  its  value,  but  the 
Logic  of  Democracy  demands  that  every  man 
shall  be  his  own  Absolute,  for*  the  essence  of 
Democracy  is  not  balloting  or  securing  majori- 
ties, but  individual  self-realization.  It  is  use- 
less to  maintain  that  any  two  individuals  have 
the  same  vision  of  the  world,  for  they  do  not. 
The  sameness  of  their  vision  ends  with  sur- 
faces. The  difference  is  found  when  they  look 
beneath  the  surface,  because  each  sees  with  the 
uniqueness  of  his  own  innerness.  We  must 
have  a  different  monistic  theory  from  the  one 
usually  presented,  if  the  conception  of  Monism 
is  to  endure.  Every  vision  of  a  poet,  a 
prophet,  or  a  philosopher,  is  an  ideal  glimpse 
of  the  world,  in  which  the  personal  equation 
is  the  decisive  factor.  Every  great  poet  has 
felt  in  some  degree,  indeed,  the  possibility  of 
197 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

communism,  and  that  the  men  and  the  women 
of  his  consciousness  were  a  part  of  his  larger 
self;  that  nature,  indeed,  was  no  solid  wall, 
opaque  to  vision,  but  a  community  of  friends ; 
such  also  is  my  own  belief,  but  there  remains 
the  private  self  still,  and,  in  the  uniqueness  of 
each  private  self,  I  find  a  residuum  eternally 
irreducible  and  impenetrable,  which  is  not  a 
part  of  nature's  smiling  face,  but  masks  one  of 
an  infinite  series  of  human  unknowables,  whose 
well-springs,  hidden  from  the  intellect,  are  the 
sources  of  the  rivulets  that  make,  by  their  con- 
fluence, the  world-wide  stream  of  real  exist- 
ence. 

No  two  individuals  are  alike.  But  all  indi- 
viduals may  be  complements  in  their  common 
world.  None  other  than  Shakespeare  could 
have  written  Hamlet;  none  other  than  Goethe, 
Faust;  but  after  a  Shakespeare  or  a  Goethe 
has  given  his  work  to  the  World,  the  work 
becomes  common  property  to  all  who  have  the 
wit  to  claim  it.  Their  works  will  not  have 
quite  the  same  meaning  to  any  two  individuals, 
for  the  personal  equation  will  operate  here 
also,  but  there  will  be  enough  of  the  universal 
discovered  to  make  them  the  joy  of  the  world, 
and  not  merely  individual  possessions.  All  art 
198 


LITERATURE   AND   DEMOCRACY 

is  communism.  And  so  is  Democracy,  when 
once  it  is  clearly  comprehended  by  the  free 
mind. 

Democracy  is  a  confession  of  brotherhood. 
It  means  that  individuals  will  use  their  private 
and  unique  gifts  for  the  welfare  of  the  whole. 
Knowing  that  he  may  complement  every  other 
man,  the  Democrat  resolves  that  he  will  do  so. 
But  evil  frowns  upon  us  because  social  equi- 
librium cannot  be  secured,  and  the  failure  to 
secure  social  equilibrium  conies  from  the  fact 
that  relationships  are  as  unique  as  the  selves 
that  form  them.  Tennyson  belongs  to  the  race, 
but  his  relation  to  Arthur  Hallam  would  not 
be,  even  in  Utopia,  quite  the  same  thing  that 
his  relation  to  other  individuals  would  be.  To 
find  our  true  relations  to  each  and  all  is  a 
problem  that  only  Utopia  can  solve. 

Mysticism,  both  ancient  and  modern,  has 
often  done  violence  to  our  real  nature,  through 
its  endeavor  to  find  God  in  the  individual  soul 
alone,  rather  than  in  the  Temple  of  Humanity. 
The  mystic  has  been  the  victim  of  a  sad  con- 
fusion of  thought.  He  has  fancied  that,  by 
shutting  his  eyes  to  the  many-colored  world 
of  time,  the  great  white  light  of  eternity  would 
burst  upon  him  with  its  august  presence,  and 
199 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

that,  by  turning  a  deaf  ear  to  the  manifold 
cadences  of  the  human  spirit,  the  voice  of  the 
infinite  would  be  heard  in  his  halls.  A  fatal 
delusion,  for  the  infinite  does  not  speak  to  the 
lonely,  imprisoned  self,  and  darkness,  not 
light,  always  envelops  him  who  refuses  to  see 
the  beauty  of  the  earth.  From  such  sad  and 
baleful  mysticism,  Democracy  must  ever  avert 
its  face.  The  grandeur  of  all  must  be  seen  by 
each;  the  grandeur  of  each  must  be  seen  by  all. 
To-day  life's  music  is  full  of  dissonance;  the 
larger  visions  are  hidden  by  the  dust  raised  in 
ephemeral  toil;  and  the  purple  peaks  of  noble 
achievement  are  shunned  by  cowards  who  hug 
in  fear  their  narrow  vales.  Our  very  democ- 
racy, as  yet,  is  only  a  thing  of  shreds  and 
patches;  no  Real  Democracy  glorified  through 
faith  and  freedom,  but  only  the  make-believe 
of  spread-eagle  spouters  and  machine  politi- 
cians. No  wonder  that  Literature  halts.  It  is 
not  strange  that  the  sun-kissed  hills  of  romance 
appear  to  have  dissolved  into  myths  and  fables. 
A  person  must  feel  the  heart-beat  of  the  uni- 
verse to  be  a  poet.  Only  men  of  faith  in  ideals 
can  transform  the  intellectual  desert  of  the 
world  into  the  gardens  of  romantic  hope  and 
expectation.  We  still  await  the  avatars  of 
£00 


LITERATURE   AND   DEMOCRACY 

truth  and  beauty,  who  shall  realize  for  us  Dem- 
ocracy and  art,  and  shall,  by  so  doing,  scatter 
the  seeds  of  a  new  gladness  throughout  the 
world. 


201 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  HEREDITY 

1\ /TUCH  has  been  spoken  and  written  during 
the  past  century  and  a  half  concerning 
the  superstitions  of  religion,  and  the  evil  of 
theological  dogmatism,  and  there  has  been 
much  ground  for  complaint  in  these  matters. 
But  it  is  a  question  whether  the  superstitions 
and  dogmatisms  of  science  are  not  likely  to  be- 
come equally  intolerable.  If  the  dogmatists  of 
science  should  ever  get  a  grip  upon  our  lives 
equal  to  the  one  which  priests  have  possessed 
in  the  past,  the  joy  of  life  will  be  in  as  immi- 
nent danger  of  being  throttled,  as  it  was  actu- 
ally throttled  by  the  priests  of  the  Church,  and 
without  those  assurances  of  a  blissful  future 
which  the  theologians  never  failed  to  give  to  all 
who  heeded  their  admonitions. 

One  of  the  great  modern  superstitions  of 
science  is  the  dogma  of  Heredity.  Of  course, 
there  is  much  truth  in  the  dogma.  There  is 
truth  in  all  dogmas.  The  truth  of  Heredity  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  figs  produce  figs,  and 
202 


THE    SUPERSTITION  OF   HEREDITY 

thistles  produce  thistles ;  that  rattlesnakes  breed 
rattlesnakes,  and  human  beings  breed  human 
beings.  But  when  we  are  told  by  doctrinaires 
that  human  beings  can  be  bred  like  cattle, 
sheep,  swine  and  dogs  into  superior  forms  of 
their  type,  if  we  will  but  follow  the  teachings 
of  the  Eugenists,  it  is  time  to  call  a  halt,  and 
demand  the  proof.  For,  while  an  animal  is  a 
creature  of  heredity,  every  individual  human 
being  is  very  largely  a  variation  from  all  that 
has  gone  before.  There  is  an  uniqueness  about 
every  man.  And  so  when  one  reads  the  writ- 
ings of  Eugenists,  like  Karl  Pearson  and  the 
late  Sir  Francis  Galton,  one  grows  sceptical 
of  the  things  they  say,  when  this  fact  of  unique- 
ness is  borne  in  mind.  These  men  dream  of  a 
race  to  be  produced  consciously,  which  shall 
be  as  kind  as  St.  Francis,  a  race  that  will  draw 
in  at  every  breath  the  quickening  ozone  of  phil- 
anthropy, with  great  intellectual  gifts;  a  race 
of  Bacons,  Shakespeares  and  Goethes,  indeed, 
with  literary  masterpieces  dropping  from  in- 
numerable pens,  like  ripe  red  apples  from  the 
trees  in  autumn,  a  race  from  which  every  sor- 
did impulse  shall  be  extirpated,  and  every  gen- 
erous impulse  conserved,  and  all  of  these  de- 
siderata are  to  be  accomplished  by  merely 
203 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

mating  the  right  men  with  the  right  women. 
Folly  shall  die,  and  wisdom  shall  dwell  as  an 
immortal  with  us.  It  is,  indeed,  when  super- 
ficially viewed,  a  very  pretty  dream. 

There  is,  however,  one  supreme  objection 
to  be  urged  in  opposition  to  this  theory,  an 
objection  that  is  found  to  be  lying  at  the  very 
threshold  of  the  discussion.  For  investigation 
does  not  reveal  any  superiority  on  the  part  of 
the  Eugenist's  children  to  the  children  of  those 
who  have  never  considered  eugenic  principles, 
or  even  heard  of  them.  One  has  a  right  to 
assume  that  the  estimable  gentlemen  who  ad- 
vocate the  new  theories  of  breeding  have  en- 
deavored to  put  into  practice  their  own  pre- 
cepts. But,  if  they  have  done  so,  what  have 
they  to  show  for  it?  Where  are  the  wonderful 
children  bred  on  eugenic  principles?  If  they 
have  married  the  right  women,  and  thus  ap- 
plied the  laws  of  breeding  known  to  every  dog 
and  pigeon  fancier,  where  are  the  prodigies  of 
intellect  and  beneficence  which  we  are  led  to 
expect,  on  the  basis  of  eugenic  teachings,  from 
such  well-assorted  unions?  Are  we  to  be  in- 
formed that  precept  and  practice  have  not,  in 
their  cases,  been  walking  hand  in  hand,  and 
that  their  divergence  is  responsible  for  the  lack 
204 


THE   SUPERSTITION  OF    HEREDITY 

of  so  much  intellectual  light  and  philanthropic 
heat  as  might  have  been  confidently  predicted 
to  appear,  if  the  Eugenists  had  possessed  the 
faith  that  makes  faithful?  If,  indeed,  there 
has  been  such  a  divorce  between  act  and  pre- 
cept on  the  part  of  the  eugenic  masters,  one 
can  but  express  regret  that  the  masters  of 
eugenic  words  have  neglected  their  opportunity 
to  butter  the  human  parsnips  of  their  romantic 
gardens  for  the  world's  intellectual  and  moral 
mart.  There  is  something  pitiful  when  a  man 
who  has  carried  the  heats  of  youth  far  into  the 
winter  of  his  age  becomes  a  preacher  of  asceti- 
cism at  last,  just  after  the  soil  of  his  being  has 
frozen  solid,  and  the  last  flower  of  his  summer 
is  faded  and  gone.  Nor  is  it  less  pitiful  to 
view  a  scientific  prophet  yelling  like  mad  for  a 
race  of  supermen,  if  in  the  blissful  days  of 
youth,  when  Love  claimed  him  for  his  own,  he 
did  nothing  to  produce  so  much  as  one  super- 
man. 

We  are  all,  no  doubt,  very  miserable  sinners. 
But  there  may  be  some  excuse  for  the  failure 
of  the  Eugenists  to  turn  out  Shakespeares  and 
John  Howards.  That  failure  may  lie  in  the 
fact  that  their  theory  of  heredity  is  a  myth. 
As  was  remarked  above,  one  cannot  say  that 
305 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

the  theory  of  heredity  is  altogether  false,  since 
like  gives  birth  to  like.  We  all  know  that  ape 
gives  birth  to  ape,  and  human  to  human.  But 
there  was  once  upon  a  time  an  ape,  or  some- 
thing that  looked  and  acted  very  much  like 
one,  unless  Darwin  and  Haeckel  be  ostracised 
from  the  courts  of  Science,  who  succeeded  in 
producing  a  being  who  must  have  appeared  to 
him  as  a  super-ape,  to  whom  the  name  of  man 
has  since  been  given.  The  poor  father  and 
mother  apes  possessed  no  self-consciousness, 
but  their  child  brought  into  the  world  this  won- 
derful attribute,  and  his  descendants  grew  so 
proud  of  the  gift  that  they  learned  to  despise 
their  far-away  infra-human  ancestor,  and,  in- 
deed, the  whole  line  of  their  ancestors  who 
were  even  lower  in  the  scale  of  being  than  the 
poor  ape  had  been,  and  not  only  did  they  learn 
to  despise  their  anthropoid  and  other  ances- 
tors, but  for  millenniums  they  were  so  con- 
ceited with  their  powers  that  they  learned  first 
to  deny,  and  then  to  forget,  the  truth  concern- 
ing their  ancestry,  until  Lord  Monboddo,  Dar- 
win, Huxley,  and  a  few  other  men  of  veracity 
and  daring  courage,  laid  the  facts  bare,  and 
blabbed  them  far  and  wide.  But,  in  doing  so, 
they  revealed,  though  perhaps  unconsciously 
206 


THE   SUPERSTITION   OF   HEREDITY 

to  themselves,  a  weapon  that  may  yet  give  the 
death-blow  to  much  that  passes  to-day  as  the 
coin-current  of  truth  in  the  matter  of  Heredity. 
There  was,  of  course,  some  indication  of 
Heredity  in  the  super-ape.  Anatomically,  the 
Heredity-element  is  manifest  even  yet.  Phys- 
ically, Heredity  is  a  fact.  Nobody  will  dispute 
that.  But  the  point  to  be  brought  home  is  that 
the  anatomical  likenesses  between  man  and  the 
ape  do  not  mean  very  much  to  the  student  of 
anthropology.  All  human  beings  bear  some 
resemblance  to  one  another,  yet  all  human  be- 
ings are  the  possessors  of  individual  unique- 
ness which  differentiates  them  in  principle  from 
the  entire  animal  creation.  If  you  know  all  the 
characteristics  of  one  rattlesnake,  you  know  the 
characteristics  of  all  rattlesnakes.  If  you  know 
all  the  characteristics  of  one  lion,  you  know 
all  there  is  to  know  about  lions  in  general.  If 
you  know  one  ape  thoroughly,  you  are  prop- 
erly introduced  to  all  apes.  But  you  may  study 
one  man  carefully  for  twenty  years,  and  be  no 
better  acquainted  with  the  next  man  whom  you 
may  meet.  One  may  know  the  progeny  of  an 
animal  by  studying  the  elder  animal,  but  the 
most  intimate  knowledge  of  a  human  father 
or  mother  will  give  no  clue  to  their  children. 
207 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

Why  there  should  be  this  difference  between 
the  animal  and  man  is  one  of  life's  mysteries, 
but  it  is  a  fact  that  our  eugenic  friends,  and 
many  other  doctrinaires,  would  do  well  to  con- 
sider carefully.  They  might  not  then  be  so 
cocksure  about  the  hereditary  dogmas.  And 
they  might  in  time  come  to  believe  that  every 
individual  is  the  master  of  his  fate,  the  cap- 
tain of  his  soul;  that  neither  the  stars 
above  us,  nor  the  ancestors  behind  us,  have 
power  to  keep  a  human  footstep  from  pressing 
forward. 

Weismannism  stripped  the  elder  theories  of 
heredity  of  half  their  strength,  and  there  may 
be  further  strippings  to  come.  The  popular 
notion  of  heredity  makes  of  one's  parentage 
a  pair  of  creators,  and  this  notion  is  bound  to 
disappear  when  closely  scrutinized  and  care- 
fully analysed.  No  creator  can  create  anything 
greater  than  himself.  A  pair  of  creators  can 
create  nothing  greater  than  themselves.  If  two 
writers  collaborate  in  the  writing  of  a  book, 
the  strength  and  weakness  of  the  two  writers 
will  appear  in  the  production.  And  so,  while 
it  is  true  that  human  bodies,  like  animal  bodies, 
are  composites,  possessing  the  strength  or 
weakness  inherited  from  the  parents,  or  even 
208 


THE   SUPERSTITION   OF   HEREDITY 

more  remote  ancestors,  it  is  not  logical  to  as- 
sume that  mental  and  moral  characteristics 
which  are  present  in  the  child,  but  not  in  the 
parents,  are  in  any  way  the  product  of  the  mind 
or  soul  of  the  parents.  It  is  the  principle  of 
variation  that  makes  one  an  individual,  and 
variation  has  never  yet  been  scientifically  ex- 
plained. Probably  it  never  will  be.  But  it  is 
variation,  rather  than  heredity,  which  makes 
an  individual  in  jesting  to  us,  and  worthy  of 
study.  The  belief  in  the  inheritance  of  the  in- 
tellect is  a  sad  delusion.  If  one  possess  an 
idea  of  which  neither  his  father  nor  mother, 
nor  yet  any  of  his  remote  ancestors,  ever 
dreamed,  from  what  stream  of  blood  could  it 
have  been  inherited?  The  trouble  with  many 
of  our  scientific  savants  is  that  they  abhor  mys- 
teries, and  desire  to  find  a  key  that  will  unlock 
the  chamber  of  every  earthly  secret.  Many 
have  hoped  to  find  in  heredity  a  key.  But 
variation  is  the  real  secret  which  needs  to  be  re- 
vealed, not  heredity,  if  we  are  to  understand 
the  individual,  and  no  key  has  yet  been  found 
to  explain  it 

It  has  been  said  by  Edmund  Montgomery 
that     "every    philosophical     question     rightly 
stated  is  a  physiological  question."    But  surely 
209 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

such  a  proposition  is  not  susceptible  of  proof. 
Physiology  might  account  for  Shakespeare,  if 
one  knew  enough  physiology,  but,  even  if  that 
were  true,  it  would  still  be  necessary  to  ac- 
count for  the  physiology  that  explained  him, 
and,  as  conditions  now  stand,  there  is  no  physi- 
ologist who  can  from  his  most  minute  knowl- 
edge of  an  individual's  physiology,  state  what 
the  ideals,  moral  characteristics,  and  intellec- 
tual abilities  of  an  individual  are.  A  post 
mortem  gives  no  key  to  a  human  soul.  Phren- 
ologists made  great  pretensions  a  generation 
or  two  ago,  but  the  name  of  Gall  does  not 
stand  high  to-day  in  the  halls  of  science.  The 
men  of  genius  did  not  always  have  good  heads, 
and  fools  sometimes  looked  as  if  they  were 
men  of  genius.  A  certain  kind  of  brain  may 
belong  to  genius,  but  it  would  be  fatuous  to 
say,  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge, 
that  the  brain  determines  genius.  It  is  quite 
as  likely  that  genius  determines  the  kind  of 
brain.  Sluggish  blood,  they  say,  makes  slug- 
gish wits.  It  may  be  so.  But  who  knows  if  it 
be  not  the  other  way  about?  Perhaps  sluggish 
wits  make  for  torpor  in  the  arterial  current. 
Too  much  has  been  written  of  physiology  as 
a  cause;  the  future  may  witness  a  school  of 
210 


THE   SUPERSTITION   OF   HEREDITY 

savants  who  will  treat  of  physiology  as  an 
effect. 

The  principle  of  variation  represents  some- 
thing more  than  a  difference  of  degree;  it  is 
a  difference  of  kind.  Every  man  of  genius  is 
a  variation  from  his  ancestors  in  kind.  Strong 
believers  in  Heredity  have  often  striven  to 
minimise  this  principle,  but  without  success. 
Mr.  Havelock  Ellis,  for  example,  after  admit- 
ting that  none  of  Carlyle's  ancestors  ever 
showed  any  capacity  for  authorship,  says  that 
Carlyle  wrote  just  as  they  would  have  written, 
if  they  had  been  able  to  write.  But  how  did 
Mr.  Ellis  make  this  truly  astounding  discov- 
ery? How,  indeed,  is  it  possible  to  know  that 
a  person  who  never  has  done  a  given  thing 
would  do  a  given  thing  in  a  certain  way  if  he 
did  it?  Mr.  Ellis  wants  us  to  believe  that  Car- 
lyle was  only  the  voice  of  myriads  of  silent 
generations  of  ancestors.  Well,  it  is  best  to 
be  frank,  and  so  I  will  say  frankly,  with  all 
due  respect  to  Mr.  Ellis,  a  psychological  in- 
vestigator who  has  done  some  splendid  work, 
that  neither  he  nor  any  other  man  who  indulges 
in  this  sort  of  generalization  knows  what  he  is 
talking  about.  He  is  only  nourishing  a  crude 
theory,  and  indulging  in  the  rashest  kind  of 
211 


THE  SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

speculation.  One  must  know  persons  before 
one  can  speak  with  due  assurance  concerning 
them,  and  Mr.  Ellis  has  never  let  it  be  known 
that  he  was  ever  on  even  speaking  terms  with 
any  of  Carlyle's  ancestors.  It  might  have  oc- 
curred to  him,  one  might  have  supposed,  that  a 
man  who  was  the  son  and  grandson  of  peasants, 
and  yet  was  able  to  use  more  words  than  any 
other  British  author,  save  one,  presents  in  him- 
self a  rather  startling  phenomenon,  for,  as  is 
generally  known,  a  few  words  are  sufficient  to 
express  all  the  ideas,  ideals  and  desires  of  a 
peasantry.  The  genius  of  Carlyle  for  using 
words  is  in  itself  sufficient  proof  that  his  varia- 
tion from  his  ancestry  was  not  one  of  degree 
merely,  but  one  of  kind.  Like  all  men  of 
genius,  Carlyle  is  an  unexplained  mystery,  and 
Mr.  Ellis  has  not  lifted  enough  of  the  curtain 
that  conceals  the  mystery  to  let  in  a  single  ray 
of  light. 

The  common  notion  of  Heredity  would,  if 
accepted,  destroy  the  concept  of  personality. 
If  a  person  is  only  a  creation  of  something, 
then,  strictly  speaking,  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  person.  A  man  created  or  manufactured  by 
his  ancestors  would  be  an  individual  no  more 
than  Feathertop,  in  Hawthorne's  story,  was 


THE   SUPERSTITION  OF   HEREDITY 

an  individual.  It  is  the  principle  of  variation 
which  confers  personality,  or  individuality, 
upon  every  human  being.  And  variation  is  not 
due  to  heredity,  for  it  is  the  antithesis  of 
heredity;  it  cannot  be  created,  because  it  is 
unique.  I  wonder  if  even  Mr.  Ellis  himself, 
who  sees  in  Carlyle  only  the  voice  of  silent 
peasants,  who,  if  they  had  written  at  all,  would 
have  written  just  as  he  did,  could  find  the  au- 
dacity to  apply  the  same  principle  to  the  aerial 
genius  of  Shelley.  For  nothing  is  more  certain 
than  the  fact  that  the  poet,  whom  Matthew 
Arnold  called  "a  beautiful  and  ineffectual 
angel  beating  in  the  void  his  luminous  wings 
in  vain,"  was  as  different  from  his  ancestors, 
both  paternal  and  maternal,  as  he  would  have 
been  if  he  had  been  born  into  another  family. 
His  unworldliness,  his  conception  of  universal 
love,  his  passion  for  reforming  the  world,  his 
contempt  for  convention,  as  well  as  his  sky- 
piercing  music,  were  as  foreign  to  all  the  other 
Shelleys,  and  to  the  women  who  married  them, 
as  day  is  to  night.  From  whence,  then,  did 
Shelley  inherit  those  characteristics  that  make 
him  the  Shelley  of  our  knowledge?  If  the 
answer  must  be,  as,  indeed,  it  must,  from  no- 
body, then  the  silliness  of  the  popular  notion 
213 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

of  heredity  ought  to  be  self-evident  in  this  case 
at  least. 

That  which  is  true  in  the  case  of  Carlyle 
and  Shelley  is  really  true  of  all  individuals. 
Everybody  is  really  himself,  and  nobody  else; 
an  individual  is  always  unique.  He  is  not  a 
continuation  of  his  father,  or  his  mother,  or 
of  the  two  combined.  The  uniqueness  of  each 
individual  is  the  great  compelling  fact  of  each 
individual,  when  the  individual  is  analysed  to 
the  bottom.  He  may  resemble  his  father  here, 
or  his  mother  there,  in  one  or  another  aspect 
of  his  being,  but  then  all  human  beings  resem- 
ble one  another.  That  is  the  penalty,  or  the 
reward,  of  their  being  human.  It  is  true 
that  Oscar  Wilde  was  able  to  say,  with  some 
degree  of  validity,  in  De  Profundis,  "Most 
people  are  other  people.  Their  thoughts  are 
some  one  else's  opinions,  their  lives  a  mimicry, 
their  passions  a  quotation."  But  it  is  not  the 
influence  of  Heredity,  but  the  influence  of  en- 
vironment, of  which  Wilde  is  speaking.  And 
there  is,  it  must  be  confessed,  a  peculiar  chame- 
leon-like quality  in  most  persons  which  is  mani- 
fested in  whatsoever  environment  they  are 
placed.  When  they  are  in  Rome  they  do  as 
the  Romans  do.  But  this  quality  has  nothing 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  HEREDITY 

to  do  with  heredity,  and  it  is  environment 
which  is  really  responsible  for  most  of  the  phe- 
nomena attributed  to  Heredity.  To  conform 
is  easier  for  most  people  than  not  to  conform. 
Yet  even  in  conformity  the  uniqueness  of  each 
person's  nature  will  be  found  cropping  out. 

How  influential  environment  is  may  be  seen 
in  the  fact  of  physiognomy.  For  example,  con- 
sider the  case  of  the  Jews.  The  Jews  have 
preserved  the  purity  of  their  race  to  a  remark- 
able degree.  Very  few  of  them  marry  outside 
of  their  race,  yet  one  may  observe  that  while 
the  racial  physiognomy  has  been  preserved 
throughout  the  generations,  the  Jew  who  is 
born  in  France  bears  some  facial  resemblance 
to  a  Frenchman,  while  a  German,  or  Russian, 
or  Polish  Jew  will  carry  the  physiognomical 
marks  of  their  respective  countries  with  them. 
It  does  not  take  long  for  the  descendants  of 
European  immigrants  to  approximate  to  the 
American  type,  even  when  there  has  been  no 
intermarriage  with  the  native  stock.  These 
facts  alone  indicate,  or  seem  to  indicate,  that 
much  which  we  commonly  attribute  to  Hered- 
ity ought  to  be  attributed  not  to  Heredity,  but 
to  environment.  Would  Hegel  among  the  Hot- 
tentots have  been  one  of  the  world's  greatest 
215 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

philosophers  ?  At  best  he  would  probably  have 
been  nothing  more  than  a  superior  Hottentot, 
and  he  might  even  have  been  an  inferior  one. 
If  the  popular  notions  of  Heredity  be  ac- 
cepted, an  individual  must  be  regarded  as 
nothing  more  than  the  confluence  of  two 
streams.  His  largeness,  his  superiority  to 
either  of  his  parents,  is  nothing  more  than  the 
union  of  the  parents,  or  of  two  streams  of 
tendency,  in  the  child.  The  genius  of  the  indi- 
vidual will  be  only  the  sum  total  of  the  smaller 
individual  geniuses  of  his  ancestors.  If  he  be  a 
great  poet,  his  poetic  greatness  must  be  re- 
garded as  only  the  accumulated  inheritance  of 
all  past  poetic  impulses  in  the  ancestral  line. 
Superstition,  even  scientific  superstition,  as  we 
may  call  it,  dies  hard,  but  surely  we  know 
enough  to  make  incredible  this  fiction  of 
intellectual  Heredity.  The  notion  that  a  man 
is  created  by  his  parents  is  the  most  myth- 
ical of  all  myths.  A  person  is  never  created. 
He  is  born  into  the  world,  and  he  grows ;  that 
is  all.  One  can  never  create  anything  greater 
than  himself,  and  to  assert  that  the  myriad- 
minded  Shakespeare  was  the  creation  of  two 
commonplace  persons  of  Stratford-on-Avon  is 
to  make  oneself  ridiculous.  Even  the  most 
216 


THE    SUPERSTITION   OF    HEREDITY 

obtuse  clodhopper  is  himself,  and  not  another, 
or  a  combination  of  others.  His  ideas,  such  as 
they  are,  are  his  own;  his  memory  is  his  own; 
his  experience  is  his  own;  his  entire  individ- 
uality is  his  own.  He  looks  at  the  world  from 
his  own  angle;  his  own  eyes  and  ears  must  do 
service  for  him.  The  physiological  genesis  of 
a  person  is  from  his  parents,  but  between  a 
person's  physiological  genesis  and  his  logical 
genesis  is  a  gulf  which  no  mechanical  philosophy 
has  ever  been  able,  or  ever  will  be  able,  to 
bridge.  The  children  of  the  mediocre  have 
risen  to  the  heights  of  genius;  the  children  of 
geniuses  are  seldom  distinguished  for  genius 
themselves. 

The  tendency  of  genius  to  physical  sterility 
has  often  been  commented  upon.  But  in  those 
instances  where  genius  has  left  children  behind, 
and,  after  all,  there  are  many  such  instances, 
nothing  but  discouragement  is  found  by  those 
who  lay  stress  on  the  principle  of  heredity. 
When  the  great  Greek  writers  and  artists  died, 
their  genius  perished  with  them;  they  did  not 
bequeath  it  to  their  children.  And  in  the  very 
fall  of  Greece  from  the  proud  position  which 
it  once  held,  in  the  very  degeneracy  of  later 
generations,  is  found  proof  that  heredity  is  not 
217 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

a  very  meaningful  term  in  the  affairs  of  the  in- 
tellect. If  heredity  be  a  powerful  factor  in 
the  building  of  genius,  why  did  the  glory  that 
was  Greece,  and  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome, 
pass  away?  Why  did  culture  wither  at  the 
breath  of  the  barbarian?  Everyone  knows 
that  the  fall  of  Greece  and  Rome  was  due  to 
the  decay  of  Greek  and  Roman  manhood,  but 
if  the  greatness  of  a  man  is  transmitted,  there 
should  have  been  no  decay  in  the  intellec- 
tual and  moral  fibre  of  these  once  dominant 
races. 

Even  those  cases  which  the  sticklers  for  the 
Heredity  principle  are  fond  of  citing,  as 
though  they  illustrated  or  proved  their  theo- 
ries, will  not  bear  close  inspection.  One  hears 
it  said  that  William  Pitt  inherited  his  states- 
man-like qualities  from  his  father,  Lord 
Chatham.  Well,  Lord  Chatham  and  his  son 
were  both  great  statesmen,  but  a  study  of  their 
respective  personalities  will  reveal  that  there 
was  as  much  difference  between  the  two  men  as 
there  was  between  Gladstone  and  Disraeli. 
No  biographical  critic  could  make  a  criticism 
of  the  one  do  service  for  the  other.  Edward 
Everett,  and  his  son  William  Everett,  were 
both  great  orators,  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
218 


THE    SUPERSTITION   OF    HEREDITY 

nobody  ever  mistook  an  oration  of  the  one  for 
an  oration  of  the  other.  It  would  be  almost 
as  easy  to  confound  the  oratorical  efforts  of 
Webster  and  Clay ! 

Let  us  be  honest!  Life  is  just  as  mysterious 
to-day  as  it  was  two  thousand  or  more  years 
ago.  Science  has  thrown  a  little  light  here  and 
there,  upon  this  spot  and  upon  that,  but  we 
are  no  nearer  to  knowing  ultimates  than  the 
medievalists  or  the  ancients  were.  It  would 
require  an  Absolute  Being  to  really  explain  the 
things  which  we  seek  to  explain,  or  have  ex- 
plained for  us,  by  mechanical  laws.  Mechan- 
ical laws  explain  nothing  but  mechanics.  And 
man  is  infinitely  more  than  a  piece  of  mechan- 
ism. When  a  Cervantes,  or  a  Shakespeare,  or 
a  Walt  Whitman,  or  an  Abraham  Lincoln  ap- 
pears, we  try  to  account  for  him  in  this  way,  or 
in  that  way,  but  in  reality  there  is  no  account- 
ing for  him.  One  may  take  the  genealogies  of 
Whitman  and  Lincoln,  and  trace,  with  some 
degree  of  probability,  their  respective  ancestral 
lines  a  considerable  distance  back,  but  the  most 
minute  study  of  their  ancestral  trees  will  fail 
to  reveal  so  much  as  an  inkling  of  evidence  that 
the  ancestry  of  one  was  conspiring  to  produce 
a  great  poet,  and  the  ancestry  of  the  other  a 
219 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

great  statesman.  The  uniqueness  of  each  of 
them  stands  out  like  a  snow-crowned  summit 
rising  from  an  almost  level  plain.  One  may 
even  doubt  whether  the  present  is  in  the  slight- 
est degree  the  product  of  past  hereditary  men- 
tal influences.  The  genius  and  talent  of  the 
past  have  left  their  works  behind,  and  we  have 
entered  into  the  inheritance  of  their  labors. 
But  our  inheritance  is  of  the  visible,  not  the 
invisible,  things.  We  know  nothing  of  the 
nerves  and  brains  of  the  past;  we  know  only 
that  the  Pyramids  and  the  Sphinx,  Greek  tem- 
ple and  Gothic  cathedral,  the  Iliad  of  Homer, 
the  Antigone  of  Sophocles,  the  Don  Quixote 
of  Cervantes,  the  Hamlet  of  Shakespeare,  the 
Leaves  of  Grass  of  Whitman,  and  all  the  other 
masterpieces  of  art  and  literature  burst  into 
being,  because  within  the  past  there  were  heroic 
masters  of  art  and  letters.  Whence  these 
heroic  masters  came,  and  whither  they  went, 
after  they  departed  from  these  shores,  no  mor- 
tal knoweth.  We  can  only  guess,  or  lose  our- 
selves in  the  fogbanks  of  metaphysical  specula- 
tion— that  is  all.  To  bow  our  heads  in  rever- 
ence before  the  gigantic  mystery  of  life  were, 
perhaps,  the  wisest  thing  for  us  to  do. 

Yet  speculate  we  shall  and  must,  for  it  is 
220 


THE    SUPERSTITION    OF    HEREDITY 

our  nature  to  dwell  upon  this  mystery.  We 
ourselves  are  that  mystery.  And  there  will 
be  no  harm  in  such  speculation,  so  long  as  we 
cling  closely  to  noble  theories.  But  the  popu- 
lar notion  of  Heredity  is  ignoble,  because  it 
destroys  the  meaning  of  personality,  and  the 
value  of  individuality.  Perhaps  we  may  have 
a  right  to  conceive  of  all  selves  as  divine  be- 
ings, existing  from  everlasting  to  everlasting, 
learning  slowly  from  experience  the  meaning 
of  themselves,  and  of  their  relations  to  each 
other;  learning,  indeed,  among  other  things, 
that,  while  each  one  of  them  is  unique,  only 
through  mutual  sympathy  and  cooperation  may 
that  uniqueness  shine  throughout  the  universe 
as  a  beacon.  What  is  Reality? — that  is  the 
question  which  the  philosophers  have  been  ask- 
ing throughout  the  centuries.  Well,  Reality 
may  be  just  a  system  of  thought-relations,  ex- 
istent through  the  mutual  attractions  and  affec- 
tions (and  perhaps  some  darker  qualities)  of 
a  Society  of  Eternal  Persons.  Perhaps  our 
common  human  nature  may  have  been  won  by 
us  only  after  many  long  and  weary  struggles 
with  gigantic  cosmic  forces  somewhere  back  in 
the  aeons  of  time;  perhaps  the  world  in  which 
we  live  was  originally  only  a  happy  thought, 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 


which  the  Eternal  Persons  have  made  actual; 
and  our  life,  with  all  its  struggles,  is  a  process 
of  redemption,  through  which'  a  loftier  sphere 
of  vision  is  gradually  being  achieved. 


222 


THE    LONELINESS   OF   LIFE 

1Y/TAN  has  been  defined  by  Aristotle  as  a 
social  animal,  and  a  social  animal  Man 
unquestionably  is.  But  one  cannot  live  for  half 
a  lifetime,  if  he  have  discerning  eyes,  without 
perceiving  that  a  goodly  percentage  of  man- 
kind derive  very  little  happiness  from  the  soci- 
ety into  which  they  were  born,  or  have  betaken 
themselves,  and  that  their  lack  of  happiness  is 
due  to  a  feeling  of  loneliness.  Those  whom 
they  meet  are  not  congenial  or  inspiring. 
There  is  for  them  no  love  or  friendship  which 
endures;  little  indeed  that  gives  even  tempo- 
rary satisfaction. 

We  should  all  be  surprised,  I  believe,  if  we 
were  to  listen  to  the  weary  tales  of  Loneliness 
which  most  persons  of  refinement  and  sensitive 
nature  could  tell,  and  doubtless  would,  if  a 
feeling  of  pride  did  not  restrain  their  lips. 
Individuals  are  not  well-adjusted  to  one  an- 
other. There  is  little  sympathy  between  them 
in  the  deeper  matters  of  their  lives.  It  is  easy 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

to  sympathize  with  the  hungry  and  homeless 
stranger;  but  to  sympathize  with  the  intellec- 
tual, ethical,  and  aesthetic  needs  of  our  fellows 
is  very  difficult,  and  to  a  majority  of  persons, 
as  yet,  all  but  impossible.  The  daily  press 
reports  the  cases  of  men  and  women  who  have 
starved  for  lack  of  bread,  but  nobody  has  ever 
thought  of  reporting  the  far  more  numerous 
cases  of  those  who  have  starved  for  lack  of 
poetry,  of  philosophy,  of  friendship,  or  some 
other  necessity  of  the  soul.  To  how  few  can 
one  reveal  frankly,  and  without  timidity,  all 
the  thoughts  and  feelings  that  have  been  born 
out  of  one's  experience!  Man  is  still  afraid 
of  Man;  quite  as  afraid  of  him,  indeed,  as  he 
is  of  a  wild  beast  It  is  a  dear  price  which  we 
pay  for  our  individuality. 

There  are  persons  who  regard  self-suf- 
ficiency as  the  highest  human  ideal.  But  we 
live  in  a  world  in  which  no  individual  is,  or 
can  be,  self-sufficient,  and  the  course  of  evolu- 
tion, instead  of  endowing  us  with  an  ever 
greater  degree  of  self-sufficiency,  is  stripping 
us  of  the  little  which  the  individual  formerly 
possessed.  There  are  few  wants  which  one 
can  supply  for  himself,  and  most  of  our  time 
is  spent  in  supplying  the  wants  of  others.  It 


THE    LONELINESS   OF    LIFE 

is  only  the  artist  who  finds  a  pure  satisfaction 
in  his  daily  task,  and  even  an  artist  would 
starve,  intellectually  and  aesthetically,  if  he 
were  completely  dependent  upon  himself  for 
inspiration.  It  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  life 
that  every  individual  is  unique,  and  yet  it  is 
this  uniqueness  of  others  which  we  truly  prize, 
(as  well  as  hate),  rather  than  those  qualities 
which  are  common  to  human  nature.  It  is  not 
the  likeness  of  another  to  oneself  which  makes 
him  interesting,  but  his  difference,  and  yet  in 
that  difference  all  our  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
rapprochement  are  found.  The  difference  at- 
tracts us,  as  the  light  attracts  the  moth,  and 
not  infrequently  with  the  same  fatal  result. 

One  might  suppose  that  the  great  man  would 
possess  a  greater  degree  of  self-sufficiency  than 
his  lesser  brother,  but  the  precise  opposite  is 
the  fact.  It  is  the  genius  who  suffers  most 
from  the  loneliness  of  life.  Those  who  are  des- 
titute of  genius  or  talent  often  find  life  very 
much  to  their  satisfaction,  upon  the  whole. 
They  make  no  heavy  demands  upon  their  com- 
panions, and  their  companions  make  no  heavy 
demands  upon  them.  The  small  amount  of 
give  and  take  required  is  given  and  taken. 
They  indulge  in  their  innocent  pleasures,  or 
225 


THE    SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

their  dissipations  not  so  innocent,  but  both  are 
comparatively  simple,  and  yield  a  sufficient  de- 
gree of  satisfaction  to  enable  the  time  to  pass 
pleasantly.  Sorrow  comes  to  them,  of  course, 
as  it  comes  to  the  more  gifted,  but  it  seldom 
brings  heartbreak  with  the  tears.  The  meas- 
ure of  their  days  is  passed  with  none  of  those 
violent  convulsions  of  spirit,  moods  of  utter 
despair,  austere  questionings  of  the  universe, 
and  the  long  black  stretches  of  loneliness, 
which  make  life  seem  a  veritable  nightmare  to 
many  a  child  of  genius.  When  the  widow  of 
the  poet  Shelley  said  that  she  intended  to  send 
her  son  to  a  school,  not  where  he  would  learn 
to  think  for  himself,  but  where  he  would  learn 
to  think  like  other  people,  she  expressed  the 
tragedy  of  genius,  as  she  had  seen  it  exempli- 
fied in  her  husband's  career.  The  genius  can- 
not think  like  other  people,  he  cannot  feel  like 
other  people;  but  we  slay  him  because  he  can- 
not. The  expansive  mind  and  heart  alike  have 
sorrows  that  the  syncopated  organs  of  thought 
and  feeling  know  little  or  nothing  of. 

The  secret  of  happiness  lies  in  the  possession 
of  power  to  realize  oneself.  But  self-realiza- 
tion does  not  mean  the  same  thing  to  all  per- 
sons. Perhaps  the  pugilist,  or  athlete,  who 


THE    LONELINESS   OF   LIFE 

becomes  a  champion  in  his  sphere,  possesses  a 
degree  of  self-realization  vouchsafed  to  very 
few,  but  to  one  who  cares  nothing  for  pugilism 
or  athletic  sport  such  success  will  seem  no  re- 
alization of  the  self  at  all.  Perhaps  a  majority 
are  fairly  well-satisfied  if  they  obtain  enough 
material  reward  from  their  toil  to  support 
themselves  and  their  families  in  a  moderate 
degree  of  comfort.  To  be  able  to  eat  three 
substantial  meals  a  day,  to  be  able  to  provide 
for  one's  beer-thirst  and  tobacco-craving,  and 
a  pillow  for  the  weary  head  at  night,  is  quite 
enough  to  fill  thousands  with  a  spirit  of  sweet 
content.  But  it  is  not  with  these  that  I  am  con- 
cerned in  this  paper. 

I  am  concerned  here  only  with  those  indi- 
viduals whose  demands  upon  life  are  so  great 
that  they  fail  to  find  the  happiness  which  all 
crave;  the  individuals  who  know  only  too  well 
that  they  possess  fancies,  feelings  and  ideals 
to  which  no  human  satisfaction  is  ever  likely  to 
be  vouchsafed;  the  individuals  who  know  the 
loneliness  that  turns  the  world  for  them  into 
a  desert;  the  poet  with  his  song,  the  painter 
with  his  picture,  the  composer  with  his  sym- 
phony, the  philosopher  with  his  treatise,  the 
dreamer  still  struggling  with  the  attempt  to 
227 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

give  his  vision  embodiment,  the  youth  swept 
in  a  maelstrom  of  conflicting  emotions,  to 
whom  ideal  and  failure  have  become  synony- 
mous words  in  the  lexicon  of  experience.  The 
failures  of  life  are  really  more  interesting  than 
the  successful,  for  the  successful  are  usually 
mediocre  in  the  deep  facts  of  experience,  see- 
ing clearly  enough,  and  with  amazing  sharp- 
ness, perhaps,  into  some  nook  or  corner,  but 
blind  to  the  larger  spaces,  while  the  failures 
are  often  those  who  have  stood  fast  by  the 
realities  which  give  to  life  all  its  meaning  and 
value. 

There  are  persons,  but  I  do  not  happen  to 
be  of  their  number,  who  believe  that  a  law 
of  compensation  obtains  in  the  world,  bringing 
to  every  man  who  strives  a  reward,  no  matter 
how  much  he  may  have  failed  in  the  seeming. 
The  great  name  of  Emerson  is  often  invoked 
to  prove  the  existence  of  this  law,  and  by  many 
he  is  supposed  to  have  discovered  it.  But  did 
Emerson  really  penetrate  to  the  heart  of  the 
matter?  It  seems  to  me  that  he  did  not.  His 
a  priori  optimism  sealed  his  eyes  to  many  bit- 
ter truths  of  existence,  and  thus  made  him, 
large  as  his  merits  as  a  great  spiritual  force 
are,  an  unsafe  teacher  at  times.  The  evils  that 
228 


THE   LONELINESS   OF   LIFE 

his  friend  Carlyle  saw  were  dim  to  him.  He 
could  not  perceive,  as  the  great  Scotsman  did, 
that  there  is  really  anything  wrong  with  the 
world.  "Look  at  the  biography  of  authors," 
says  Carlyle;  "except  the  Newgate  Calendar, 
it  is  the  most  sickening  chapter  in  the  history 
of  man."  And  so  it  is.  But  Emerson  did  not 
know  that  history  had  in  its  annals  so  much  as 
one  sickening  chapter.  His  law  of  compensa- 
tion, when  analysed,  means  no  more  than  this: 
that  a  person  after  a  long  and  wearisome 
search  for  gold,  in  which  he  has  spent  his 
health  and  strength  fruitlessly,  will  find  that 
he  has  obtained  pretty  shells  and  pebbles  which 
are  as  good  as  gold,  or  even  much  better  than 
the  precious  metal,  if  one  will  but  think  so. 
But  the  disappointed  seeker  is  not  likely  to 
think  so,  and  I  must  confess  that  my  sympa- 
thies are  all  with  the  disappointed  seeker. 

Something  of  the  failure  of  success  Emerson 
indeed  did  see.  He  saw  that  the  successful  pres- 
idential candidate  was  likely  to  leave  the  larger 
part  of  his  manhood  behind  him.  But  the 
poignant  distress  that  the  noblest  and  best  are 
almost  certain  to  experience  was  not  clear  to 
him,  as  it  was  to  Carlyle.  How  deeply  he  rev- 
erenced Plato,  yet  the  saying,  "as  sad  as 
229 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

Plato,"  which  obtained  currency  among  the 
Greeks,  apparently  left  no  impress  upon  him. 
The  profound  dejection  of  Carlyle  himself  did 
not  disturb  his  facile  optimism.  But  it  doubt- 
less would,  if  he  had  caught  the  significance 
of  his  friend's  reference  to  Shakespeare,  when 
he  wrote,  in  Heroes  and  Hero-worship: 

"Alas,  Shakespeare  had  to  write  for  the 
Globe  Playhouse;  his  great  soul  had  to 
crush  itself,  as  it  could,  into  that  and  no 
other  mould.  It  was  with  him,  then,  as 
it  is  with  us  all.  No  man  works  save 
under  conditions.  .  .  .  Disjecta 
membra  are  all  that  we  find  of  any  poet, 
or  of  any  man." 

Truth  is  as  hard  as  rock,  and  as  pitiless. 

The  passage  from  Carlyle  which  I  have 
quoted  embodies  the  quintessence  of  the  Lone- 
liness of  life.  We  all  have  to  work  under 
conditions,  and  these  conditions  are  seldom  cal- 
culated to  bring  out  the  best  that  is  in  us,  or 
that  which  in  the  depths  of  our  hearts  we  de- 
sire to  bring  out.  All  truth  and  beauty  and 
goodness  are  strictly  personal,  and  yet  per- 
sonality is  the  one  thing  which  the  public 
230 


THE    LONELINESS   OF    LIFE 

always  refuses  to  pardon.  The  person  who 
thinks  and  feels,  no  matter  how  sincere  he 
may  be,  is  always  distasteful  to  most  of  his 
contemporaries.  Walt  Whitman  said  that 
whoever  touched  his  Leaves  of  Grass  touched 
a  man.  This  explains  sufficiently  why  Whit- 
man was  so  unpopular  with  his  fellow-country- 
men. The  public  does  not  want  to  touch  a 
man  when  it  reads  a  book,  and  yet  every  book, 
if  it  be  worth  the  paper  upon  which  it  is  writ- 
ten, is  a  transcript  of  a  living  soul.  IT  is  an 
expression  of  a  personal  self,  the  deepest  re- 
ality to  be  found  anywhere  within  the  uni- 
verse; and  perhaps  the  only  reality.  Never- 
theless, the  public,  and  often  the  editor,  not 
infrequently  treat  a  work  which  has  been 
forged  in  the  fire  of  a  human  heart  as  if  it 
were  nothing  more  than  a  conglomeration  of 
so  many  idle  words,  fortuitously  produced  by 
a  wild  and  aimless  molecular  dance.  It  would 
be  better  for  us  if  the  Chinese  superstition 
concerning  the  printed  word  were  our  supersti- 
tion also,  for  it  is  a  superstition  that  makes  the 
writer  seem  a  native,  and  not  an  alien,  to  the 
race  which  cradles  him. 

We  shall  never  witness  the  greatest  litera- 
ture, or  the  finest  art,  or  the  noblest  living, 
231 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

until  we  shall  have  come  to  appreciate  the 
uniqueness  of  every  person.  Great  as  Shake- 
speare was,  his  work  would  doubtless  have 
been  much  greater  if  the  exigencies  of  the 
Globe  Playhouse  had  not  disturbed  his  genius. 
How  many  of  his  contemporaries  were  capable 
of  appreciating  the  best  that  he  had  to  give? 
How  many,  indeed,  are  capable  of  appreciat- 
ing the  best  that  any  of  us  have  to  give?  The 
lack  of  respect  for  personal  uniqueness,  the 
prevailing  notion  that  all  ought  to  think  and 
feel  alike,  is  responsible  for  most  of  our  medi- 
ocrity. Some  relation  with  his  kind  every  one 
must  have,  but  whether  the  relation  is  to  be  a 
true  or  a  false  one  will  depend  upon  the  con- 
ception of  personality  which  the  community 
entertains.  To-day  the  relations  between  in- 
dividuals lack  substance.  We  know  nobody 
as  he  is,  and  our  conventions  are,  for  the  most 
part,  tainted  with  hypocrisy.  Genius  despises 
the  conventions.  The  oak  will  not  confine 
itself  in  a  flower-pot;  the  Niagara  torrent  will 
not  accept  the  dimensions  of  a  water-tank;  the 
man  or  woman  of  force  will  not  lie,  without 
protest,  upon  any  Procrustean  bed  of  author- 
ity. Socialism,  unless  it  leads  to  a  larger  Indi- 
vidualism than  any  which  the  ages  have  been 
232 


THE    LONELINESS   OF    LIFE 

cognizant  of,  will  prove,  if  successful,  the 
greatest  tyranny  that  the  world  has  known. 
Our  socialist  friends  make  much  ado  over  the 
necessity  for  class-consciousness,  as  though  it 
were  possible  for  a  class  to  have  aspirations. 
But  no  class  ever  had  aspirations,  although  it 
may  have  had  grievances,  and  no  class  ever 
will  have  them.  The  hope  of  the  race  has 
always  lain  in  the  aspirations  of  the  few  heroic 
souls,  and  what  has  been  true  of  the  past  will 
doubtless  be  true  for  a  long  time  to  come.  It 
is  only  the  personal  equation  which  has  ever 
counted,  or  ever  will. 

It  is  a  pitiful  story,  the  history  of  this,  our 
world,  though  Hegel,  and  other  philosophers, 
have  thought  that  they  have  discovered  a  ra- 
tional purpose  incarnated  within  it,  as  perhaps 
they  have.  But  to  many  whose  vision  is  not  so 
keen  as  the  vision  of  these  philosophers,  the 
loneliness  of  existence  comes  as  an  appalling 
fact.  They  know  that  the  noblest  persons  in 
all  ages  have  been  stoned,  crucified,  burned,  be- 
headed, hanged,  thrown  into  dungeons,  or  os- 
tracised. The  record  is  a  long  one.  Socrates, 
Anaxagoras,  Jesus,  Paul,  Galileo,  Bruno,  Huss, 
Savonarola,  Cervantes,  More,  Spinoza,  Kant, 
Wagner,  Darwin  and  Whitman  are  the  names 
233 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

of  heroic  men  who,  to  a  greater  or  lesser  de- 
gree, suffered  the  penalty  for  being  different 
from  their  contemporaries.  But  all  persons,  to 
just  the  extent  that  they  differ  from  the  multi- 
tude of  the  so-called  average  men  and  women, 
are  made  to  feel  the  loneliness  of  their  posi- 
tion. Blessed  is  the  man  who  stands  upon  his 
own  instincts,  if  he  finds  one  staunch  friend 
who  truly  appreciates  the  sincerity  of  his  pur- 
pose. There  have  been  many  who  could  never 
have  defined  the  word  friendship  from  actual 
personal  experience. 

The  loneliness  of  life — who  does  not  feel  it, 
if  he  feel  at  all?  Bacon  said  long  ago,  and 
Thoreau,  in  substance,  repeated  it  after  him, 
that  there  is  little  friendship  in  the  world. 
Each  of  us  stands  upon  his  solitary  peak  of 
self,  and  few  there  be  who  come  within  close 
hailing  distance  of  one  another.  Every  orig- 
inal idea,  every  new  impulse  of  feeling,  but 
drives  us  deeper  into  our  individual  dungeons. 
A  century  or  two  hence  the  spirit  may  be  free 
again,  but  the  period  of  imprisonment  is  long, 
and  its  conditions  inexorable.  Our  friends  are, 
for  the  most  part,  of  the  past  and  future,  not 
the  present;  the  real  self  is  often  doomed  to 
solitary  confinement;  then  only  our  simulac- 
234 


THE   LONELINESS  OF  LIFE 

rum  wanders  forth  in  the  day,  or  in  the  night, 

clasping  hands,  and  indulging  in  what  we  are 
pleased  to  term  human  intercourse.  One  may 
indeed  make  the  best  of  the  situation,  and  pre- 
serve a  noble  stoicism,  but  let  no  one  who 
values  the  integrity  of  his  mind  or  heart  accept 
make-believe  as  reality.  Pretty  our  make- 
believe  may  be  in  the  seeming,  but  there  are 
hours  when  pretence,  even  our  own,  fails  to  win 
us,  and  we  see  things  as  they  are,  in  all  their 
bald,  colossal  ugliness.  Society,  in  the  truest 
sense  is,  as  yet,  only  a  dream,  and  it  will  doubt- 
less be  many  millenniums  before  the  dream 
comes  true. 

What  would  we  have?  Edmund  Spenser,  a 
poet's  poet,  has  tried  to  answer  the  question 
for  us,  in  his  Muiopotmus,.when  he  says: 

"What  more  felicity  can  fall  to  creature 
Than  to  enjoy  delight  with  liberty, — 
And  to  be  lord  of  all  the  works  of  nature? 
To  reign  in  the  air  from  the  earth  to  highest  sky, 
To  feed  on  flowers  and  weeds  of  glorious  feature, 
To  take  whatever  thing  doth  please  the  eye? 
Who  rests  not  pleased  with  such  happiness, 
Well  worthy  he  to  taste  of  wretchedness." 

But  is  this  enough?     No,  it  is  not.     We  may 

be  sure  that  it  would  never  have  been  enough 

235 


THE   SPIRIT   OF    LIFE 

for  the  poet  himself.  Man  is  more  than  na- 
ture, and  one  human  heart,  which  truly  re- 
sponds to  our  own,  is  worth  more  than  all  the 
fairness  of  earth  and  sea  and  sky.  All  the 
beauty  and  sublimity  and  wonder  of  nature  will 
not  assuage  the  pain  that  the  isolated  soul  feels, 
even  when  nature  is  seen  at  her  sweetest  and 
best.  The  charm  that  the  great  world-out-of- 
doors  has  for  us  is  only  a  charm  that  the  poet 
has  instilled  within  our  minds.  The  singing 
robes  of  nature  are  all  woven  of  human  tex- 
ture. The  wilderness  is  paradise  enough  when 
shared  with  a  friend;  it  is  an  inferno  when  one 
dwells  therein  as  a  solitary  monarch.  There  is 
no  hope  or  joy  for  the  individual  save  in  Hu- 
manity. If  no  human  heart  beats  against  our 
own,  then  is  the  loneliness  of  life  present  with 
us  as  a  bitter  and  appalling  thing.  To  make 
for  a  better  understanding  of  men,  to  value 
the  uniqueness  of  every  person — this  is  pure 
and  undefiled  religion.  Conflict  there  must 
necessarily  be,  but  we  shall  never  be  truly  civ- 
ilised until  we  shall  have  learned  to  respect, 
and  even  to  admire,  our  honest  foes.  It  is  not 
conflict  between  man  and  man,  but  the  Loneli- 
ness of  Life,  that  eats,  like  an  acid,  into  our 
hearts. 


CONSERVATISM    AND    REFORM 

"C^VERY  man  is  both  a  Conservative  and  a 
Radical.  There  is  no  one  who  wishes  to 
destroy  everything  that  is ;  there  is  no  one  who 
desires  to  retain  all  things  that  are.  The  Con- 
servative is  simply  a  person  who  is,  upon  the 
whole,  satisfied  with  present  conditions;  the 
Radical  is  simply  a  person  who  is  very  largely 
dissatisfied  with  them,  and  desirous  of  change. 
There  are  persons  who  reveal  a  large  mixture 
of  Radical  and  Conservative  elements;  Con- 
servative in  politics,  it  may  be,  and  Radical  in 
their  religious  views,  or  vice  versa;  there  are 
others  who  are  generally  Radical,  or  generally 
Conservative,  but  who  hold  fast  to  some  Rad- 
ical idea,  or  to  some  Conservative  one. 

The  average  individual  is  not  a  logician;  he 
is  not  logical  in  his  usual  ways  of  thinking.  A 
majority  of  men  could  give  no  very  lucid  rea- 
son why  they  hold  this  article  or  that  of  the 
creeds  which  they  profess.  They  have  ac- 
quired their  ideas  from  their  parents,  or  their 
237 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

teachers,  or  the  prevailing  sentiment  of  their 
respective  communities.  The  Marxians  insist 
that  one  is  governed  by  his  material  self-inter- 
ests, but  experience  reveals  that  this  is  less  true 
than  might  be  supposed.  There  are  times 
when  self-interest  is  almost  a  negligible  quan- 
tity. A  person  intoxicated  with  an  idea  will 
cast  every  shred  of  self-interest  to  the  winds, 
and  surrender  himself,  a  willing  martyr,  to  a 
cause  which  he  is  barely  able  to  understand,  or 
is  even  quite  unable  to  comprehend.  Persons 
are  loyal  to  a  church  whose  theological  tenets 
have  never  penetrated  their  understandings,  to 
kings  whom  they  have  never  seen,  and  of 
whom  they  know  nothing,  to  political  leaders 
who  are  to  them  but  little  more  than  gilded 
names.  There  is  much  that  is  sublime,  much 
that  is  humiliating,  in  this  loyalty  of  men.  But 
it  reveals  that  feeling,  rather  than  thought, 
turns  the  wheels  of  human  life,  although  the 
feeling  had  its  source  in  a  thought  of  some 
human  soul. 

The  human  race  has  never  progressed  spon- 
taneously, and  as  a  unit;  only  the  individual 
succeeds  in  raising  himself  above  himself.  The 
masses  are  like  the  ocean,  which  is  at  rest  until 
the  wind  plays  over  its  surface,  or  the  moon 
238 


CONSERVATISM   AND   REFORM 

exerts  her  gravitating  power.  In  spite  of  all 
that  is  credited  to  evolution,  there  is  not,  so  far 
as  one  can  see,  any  progress  on  the  part  of  the 
race,  save  as  the  race  comes  under  the  influ- 
ence of  a  master-mind,  a  genius,  a  hero,  who 
lifts  it  to  his  own  level  by  dint  of  some  mys- 
tery, which  will  never  find  an  explanation  out- 
side of  metaphysics.  The  Johannine  Christ 
says:  "If  I  be  lifted  up,  I  will  draw  all  men 
unto  me" ;  and  all  progress  recorded  by  history 
has  consisted  in  following  a  leader,  who  was 
lifted  up  by  the  power  of  an  idea,  that  ger- 
minated, apparently  spontaneously,  in  his  mind. 
No  doubt  the  seeds  of  progress  lie  within  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  all  individuals,  but  they 
will  not  germinate  spontaneously  in  the  ma- 
jority; some  human  light  and  warmth  must 
penetrate  to  them  before  that  miracle  will  be 
witnessed.  Democracy  itself  is  a  plant  whose 
seeds  matured  first  in  aristocratic  hearts. 

Now  the  majority  of  human  beings,  be  it  re- 
membered, are  always  fairly  well  satisfied  with 
things  as  they  are.  Men  may  try  to  improve 
their  personal  condition  a  little  here,  or  a  little 
there,  but  most  of  them  bear  no  ill-will  toward 
the  society  into  which  they  were  born,  no  mat- 
ter how  despitefully  this  society  may  have  used 
239 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

them.  The  African  torn  from  his  sunny  home, 
and  brought  to  America  to  serve  in  bondage, 
may  have  nourished  for  a  time  some  slight 
spirit  of  rebellion,  but  his  sons  and  daughters 
did  not.  On  the  contrary,  these  young  blacks 
were  very  well  contented  with  the  conditions 
of  servile  toil  which  inured  to  the  economic 
benefit  of  their  masters  and  mistresses,  and  it 
is  certain  that  the  owners  were  no  more  firmly 
convinced  that  slavery  was  a  divine  institution 
than  were  the  slaves  themselves.  The  horror 
of  slavery  was  born  in  the  souls  of  men  like 
Garrison  and  Phillips,  not  in  the  souls  of  those 
to  whom  slavery  was  the  daily  reality  of  reali- 
ties. A  few  superior  negroes,  like  Frederick 
Douglass,  did  feel  the  horror  of  it,  but  the  im- 
pulse to  freedom  on  their  part  was  usually  born 
out  of  abnormal  conditions.  The  Frederick 
Douglasses  of  slavery  were  certainly  few  in 
number,  comparatively  speaking;  for  when 
freedom  was  already  in  sight,  a  majority  of  the 
slaves  still  clung  with  pathetic  loyalty  to  their 
masters  and  mistresses. 

Socialists,  and  many  who  are  not  Socialists, 
see  in  the  average  man  of  our  time  what  they 
call  a  "wage-slave,"  and,  in  truth,   a  "wage- 
slave"  is  all  that  the  average  man  can  right- 
240 


CONSERVATISM  AND  REFORM 

fully  be  called.  For  the  average  man  does  not 
own  himself;  he  is  owned  by  another,  or  by  a 
corporation.  Nevertheless,  the  wage-slave  is 
no  more  conscious  of  the  degradation  of  his 
condition  than  the  African  slave  was.  He  is 
chained  and  fettered,  but  he  does  not  feel  the 
chains  and  fetters  galling  to  his  limbs.  His 
master  does  not  need,  as  a  rule,  to  put  a  pad- 
lock upon  his  lips;  he  is  as  dumb  as  a  sheep 
before  the  shearer.  The  average  man  takes  it 
for  granted  that  he  was  born  into  the  world  to 
be  a  hireling ;  to  hew  wood  and  draw  water,  to 
labor  in  shop,  in  factory  and  field,  which 
others  own,  and  to  receive  a  scanty  pittance  in 
return  for  his  toil  from  those  who  grow  rich 
out  of  the  profits.  And  as  the  horror  of 
African  slavery  was  born,  not  in  the  souls  of 
the  slaves  themselves,  but  in  the  souls  of  free 
men  and  women,  so  the  horror  of  wage-slavery 
was  born,  not  in  the  souls  of  the  wage-slaves, 
but  in  the  souls  of  men  who  were  born  outside 
of  the  class  of  wage-slaves,  or,  at  least,  suc- 
ceeded in  rising  out  of  it.  The  intellectuals 
are  the  great  anti-wage-slave  propagandists  of 
to-day.  Most  of  our  ablest  litterateurs  are 
either  Socialists,  or  Anarchists,  outright,  or 
they  sympathize  with  those  who  are.  These 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

men,  one  might  suppose,  should  be  reasonably 
well  satisfied  with  things  as  they  are,  but  they 
are  not  satisfied.  And,  if  Capitalism  ever  re- 
ceives its  death-blow,  the  impetus  will  come 
from  persons  who  have  as  good  reason  to  be 
satisfied  with  present  conditions  as  the  bitterest 
enemies  of  Socialism  have.  What  made  Wil- 
liam Morris  a  Socialist?  or  John  Ruskin?  or 
Robert  Owen?  or  Oscar  Wilde?  or  William 
Dean  Howells?  What  made  Elisee  Reclus, 
the  world's  greatest  geographer,  an  Anarchist? 
or  Prince  Kropotkin?  or  Henrik  Ibsen?  or 
Count  Tolstoy?  These  men  were  successful 
enough.  What  produced  in  them  their  feeling 
of  discontent,  and  sympathy  for  the  workers? 
To  ask  these  questions  is  easy;  to  answer 
them  is  more  difficult;  nay,  in  the  last  analysis, 
impossible,  if  we  seek  an  answer  that  shall 
satisfy  the  Rationalist.  Any  one  could  under- 
stand a  rebellion  of  the  slaves  and  the  down- 
trodden ;  any  one  could  understand  the  attitude 
of  mind  which  might  lead  to  a  revolt  of  the 
weary  and  the  heavy-laden.  But  the  smug-faced 
prosperous  Conservative  is  unable  to  under- 
stand, and  he  will  never  be  able  to  understand, 
why  persons  who  are  prosperous,  or  fairly 
prosperous,  should  interfere  with  social  con- 
243 


CONSERVATISM  AND  REFORM 

ditions,  and  go  forth  proclaiming  revolution- 
ary messages.  Well,  there  is  no  rational  an- 
swer to  be  given  why  prosperous  folk  should 
do  so,  if,  by  rational,  we  mean  what  all  can 
understand.  What  men  call  Reason  explains 
very  little  that  is  beautiful,  or  sublimely  true. 
Nobody  knows  why  a  genius  will  almost  starve 
himself,  and  submit  to  all  manner  of  direful 
deprivation,  in  order  that  he  may  write  his 
poem,  or  compose  his  music,  or  paint  his  pic- 
ture, or  write  his  philosophical  treatise.  Plato 
believed  that  the  poet  was  one  who  had  been 
seized  by  a  divine  madness,  and  perhaps  this 
notion  of  Plato's  is  as  rational  as  any  which 
can  be  conceived  of  in  our  present  state  of  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  development.  For  the 
truth  is  that  we  do  not  know  what  makes  any 
man  a  poet,  a  revolutionary,  or  a  lover.  The 
love  of  man  for  man,  for  his  country,  or  for 
the  world,  is  the  greatest  of  all  mysteries. 
People  debate  whether  Jesus  worked  miracles, 
and  fail  to  see  that  he  was  himself,  in  his  tow- 
ering love  for  mankind,  a  miracle  of  miracles. 
The  genuine  reformer  is  always  a  lover,  and 
a  great  lover  is  necessarily  a  genius.  I  am 
forced  to  admit,  however,  that  there  are  many 
so-called  reformers  who  are  not  to  be  placed 
843 


THE   SPIRIT  OF   LIFE 

in  the  category  of  lovers,  or  of  geniuses.  They 
form  the  class  of  pseudo-reformers,  which 
caused  Lowell  to  write:  "Every  reformer  is 
at  heart  a  blackguard,"  and  Thoreau  to  say: 
"I  love  reform,  but  I  hate  reformers."  It  has 
been  said  of  Wendell  Phillips  that  he  had  a 
vicious  streak.  However  true  or  false  this 
statement  may  have  been,  most  of  us  have 
come  into  contact  with  the  pseudo-reformer 
who  uses  the  cause  of  reform  in  order  to  ex- 
ploit himself.  There  are,  indeed,  some  very 
little  folk  who  pose  as  reformers.  They  have 
the  heart  of  a  stone  and  the  soul  of  an  insect. 
They  are  not  big  enough  to  dwell  in  love, 
neither  are  they  big  enough  to  dwell  in  hate; 
to  attract  attention  to  their  own  little  two  by 
four  souls  is  the  whole  of  their  ambition. 
They  attack  the  landlord,  or  the  capitalist,  for 
exploiting  the  people,  not  because  they  really 
love  the  people,  or  really  hate  the  people's  ene- 
mies, but  in  order  to  shine  in  the  limelight. 
Some  live  on  a  vegetarian  diet,  not  because 
they  like  vegetables,  or  regard  meat  as  danger- 
ous to  their  health,  nor  even  through  any  sym- 
pathy for  the  slaughtered  animals,  but  for  the 
simple  reason  that,  if  they  did  not  indulge  in 
some  eccentric  act,  nobody  would  pay  any  at- 
244 


CONSERVATISM  AND  REFORM 

tention  to  them.  They  denounce  the  church, 
because  it  costs  less  to  denounce  it  than  to  con- 
tribute to  its  support.  Indeed,  this  type  of  re- 
former has  little  interest  in  any  kind  of  reform 
if  it  costs  him  anything.  He,  too,  like  the  cap- 
italist, or  the  landlord,  whom  he  belabors,  is 
the  slave  of  his  purse.  Does  his  brother,  for 
whom  he  professes  so  much  sympathy,  starve, 
or  walk,  a  homeless  stranger,  the  city's  streets? 
Well,  this,  in  his  opinion,  is  a  crime  of  society 
to  be  railed  against,  but  he  never  considers  the 
question  of  his  own  personal  duty  in  the  mat- 
ter. He  loves  reform;  he  believes  in  Social- 
ism, or  the  Single  Tax,  or  some  other  panacea 
for  the  social  aches  and  ills  to  which  we  have 
fallen  heir,  but  even  an  unfortunate  Socialist, 
or  Single  Taxer,  would  fare  ill  if  he  went  to 
him  for  relief.  Sometimes  this  pseudo-re- 
former justifies  himself  on  the  ground — so  sat- 
isfactory to  his  purse,  and  selfishness  of  heart 
— that  the  pain  of  the  tortured  is  the  seed  of 
reform;  or,  it  may  be,  he  is  full  of  Darwin  and 
the  dogma  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  quite 
oblivious  of  his  inconsistency.  It  has  been  said 
that  none  are  so  uncharitable  as  the  Socialists. 
I  know  not  whether  this  be  true  or  not,  but  it 
is  a  common  trait  of  all  pseudo-reformers  to 
245 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

reveal  their  uncharitableness,  after  they  have 
thrown  their  small  wits  in  the  public's  face, 
and  proclaimed  from  the  house-tops  their  un- 
dying devotion  to  mankind.  They  should  be 
known  for  what  they  are,  and  placed  in  the 
pillory  of  human  contempt 

The  genuine  reformer,  however,  as  I  have 
said,  is  always  a  lover.  He  does  not  lose  sight 
of  the  individual  in  the  forest  of  humanity. 
He  loves  the  real  man,  and  not  the  rhetorical 
image  merely.  He  loves  the  individual,  be- 
cause he  sees  the  potentialities  that  inhere  in 
every  individual.  To  be  a  true  reformer,  one 
must  possess  sight  and  insight.  And  the  real 
secret  of  all  the  great  reformers  of  the  world 
I  believe  to  have  been  their  innate  perception 
of  some  genuine  worth,  some  real  value,  in  the 
individual,  which  was  buried  by  the  monstrosi- 
ties of  society  that  they  waged  war  against. 
The  apostles  of  Democracy  have  seen  that  soci- 
ety does  not  secure  the  highest  good  so  long  as 
some  individuals  are  forbidden  to  claim  pos- 
session of  their  own  souls.  The  Socialist  sees 
that  the  division  between  classes  and  masses 
keeps  the  multitude  from  a  realization  of  the 
self.  The  Anarchist  perceives  that  coercion 
is  the  destruction  of  the  mind.  In  the  large 
246 


CONSERVATISM  AND   REFORM 

essentials,  Democrats,  Socialists,  and  Anarch- 
ists have  been  apostles  of  light,  although  their 
vision  has  seldom  been  pure,  for  it  is  not 
given  to  many  to  see  life  steadily  and  see  it 
whole. 

All  true  reform  means  liberation;  it  means 
a  new  freedom  somewhere.  When  we  shall 
have  secured  the  free  mind  and  the  free  body, 
the  task  of  the  reformer  will  be  over.  The 
Conservative  and  the  Radical  will  then  be  at 
one.  Have  we  any  reason  to  believe  that  so 
happy  a  consummation  will  ever  be  reached? 
No,  that  is  unquestionably  too  much  to  expect, 
for  the  Ideal  which  lures  humanity  ever  up- 
ward and  onward  is  not  finite,  but  infinite. 
Philosophers  have  discussed  the  goal  of  Evolu- 
tion, but  there  is  no  goal  of  Evolution.  There 
is  no  "One  far-off,  divine  event,  to  which  the 
whole  creation  moves."  There  are  goals  in- 
numerable, goal  beyond  goal,  and  there  shall 
be  from  everlasting  to  everlasting.  A  reform 
accomplished  only  reveals  the  necessity  of  a 
new  reform.  The  clearest-sighted  of  Radicals 
never  get  to  the  bottom  of  the  roots.  And  the 
Conservative  is  needed  no  less  than  the  Rad- 
ical, for  he  sees  what  the  Radical  often  over- 
looks, namely,  the  noble  things  that  have 
247 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

already  been  secured,    and  may   not  be   dis- 
carded without  peril. 

I  am  frank  to  confess  my  radicalism.  But 
I  am  a  Conservative,  too.  And  I  perceive 
with  regret  that  most  of  the  radicalisms  of  the 
hour  are  spotted  with  much  that  is  hideous  and 
forbidding.  Our  Radicals,  if  left  to  them- 
selves to  work  out  our  destinies,  would  prove 
no  less  dangerous  to  the  interests  of  the  race 
than  the  Conservatives,  if  left  to  themselves. 
The  war  for  the  liberation  of  the  human  mind 
and  body  needs  to  be  waged,  and  waged  vigor- 
ously, and  I  am  a  Radical  because  I  believe  in 
the  absolute  freedom  of  the  human  soul  from 
coercive  restraint;  but  when  I  perceive  that 
many  of  our  Radicals  forget  to  pay  tribute  to 
the  value  of  art,  of  letters,  of  metaphysics  and 
religion,  or,  at  least,  adequate  tribute  to  them, 
it  becomes  evident  to  me  that  conservatism  has 
much  to  say  for  itself.  How  much  that  is 
finest  in  human  life  the  great  Tolstoy  himself 
would  have  destroyed!  How  barren  his,  and 
all  other,  asceticism  is!  "Who  but  the  Poet 
was  it,"  says  Goethe,  xin  Wilhelm  Meister, 
"that  first  formed  gods  for  us;  that  exalted  us 
to  them,  and  brought  them  down  to  us?"  But 
many  a  Radical  has  learned  to  speak  disre- 
248 


CONSERVATISM  AND  REFORM 

spectfully  both  of  the  poets  and  the  gods. 
Utilitarianism  is  placed  above  beauty,  and 
wealth  is  exalted  above  the  ideals  of  religion. 
Our  Socialists  are  usually  materialists,  and 
polite  Radicals  are  prone  to  a  cheerless  ag- 
nosticism. But  radicalism  when  it  dispenses 
with  the  ideals  of  religion,  and  eschews  the 
spirit  of  the  great  poets  and  prophets  of  the 
world,  will  discover  ultimately  that  it  has  for- 
saken the  stars,  to  admire  a  will-o'-the-wisp, 
wandering  over  treacherous  bogs.  Without 
the  consolations  and  inspirations  of  religion, 
there  can  be  no  line  of  prophets,  and,  without 
prophets,  there  can  be  no  enduring  life.  Let 
us  banish  the  nightmares  of  religion,  but  let 
us  conserve  its  divinest  dreams.  One  cannot 
rally  men  forever  to  fight  around  the  banner  of 
a  grievance.  There  is  little  magic  in  a  cause 
that  has  no  higher  object  in  view  than  to  en- 
able persons  to  gratify  without  stint  their 
stomach-hungers  and  sexual  desires.  Our  ma- 
terialist friends  may  think  otherwise,  and  com- 
mon weakness  may  seem  to  justify  them;  but 
there  is  a  mystical  element  in  man's  nature 
which  causes  the  masses  to  turn  away  very 
quickly  from  the  philosopher  who  can  promise 
them  nothing  but  brute  satisfactions.  Man  is 
249 


THE  SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

not  a  brute,  but  a  spirit,  and  Socialism,  or 
Anarchism,  or  any  other  radicalism  must  ac- 
quire this  truth  before  it  can  conquer  the 
world.  Many  Socialists,  indeed,  endeavor  to 
make  of  Socialism  a  religion,  and  this  is  well, 
if  they  do  not  forsake  the  truly  inspiring  dog- 
mas that  have  come  down  from  the  past.  They 
must  incorporate  all  the  vital  elements  of 
Christianity.  The  heart  and  head  of  humanity 
must  be  satisfied.  One  must  feel  the  greatness 
of  himself,  and  of  his  kind,  before  he  will  will- 
ingly become  a  martyr,  and  no  cause  has  ever 
succeeded  which  did  not  possess  a  large  num- 
ber of  followers  who  were  willing  to  be  sacri- 
ficed for  the  higher  good.  Will  men  willingly 
lay  down  their  lives  in  order  to  give  all  men 
an  opportunity  to  appease  their  stomach  and 
sexual  hungers,  if  there  be  no  nobler  battle- 
cry  floating  in  the  wind?  Take  away  the  in- 
spiration which  comes  from  the  religious  sen- 
timent, and  all  radicalism  will  be  but  a  sowing 
of  the  wind  and  the  reaping  of  the  whirlwind. 
There  will  always  be  need  of  reform;  hence 
there  will  always  be  need  of  Radicals.  But 
our  reformers  must  learn  to  be  true  Conserva- 
tives, no  less  than  Radicals,  for  all  true  reform 
will  be  rooted  and  grounded  in  inspirations 
£50 


CONSERVATISM  AND  REFORM 

which  have  whispered  to  us  out  of  the  past. 
Cortes  did  wisely,  no  doubt,  when  he  burned 
his  ships  upon  reaching  the  coast  of  Mexico, 
but  no  thinker  or  artist  will  ever  consent  to 
burn  his  library  or  art-treasures,  no  matter 
what  shore  of  destiny  he  may  reach.  He  will 
heed  the  truth  which  Walter  Pater  proclaimed, 
in  a  striking  passage  of  Gaston  de  Latour,  a 
truth  too  often  overlooked  by  reformers.  "It 
happens  most  naturally,  of  course,"  said  Pater, 
in  speaking  of  Bruno,  "that  those  who  undergo 
the  shock  of  spiritual  or  intellectual  change 
sometimes  fail  to  recognize  their  debt  to  the 
deserted  cause: — How  much  of  the  heroism, 
or  other  high  quality,  of  their  rejection  has 
really  been  the  product  of  what  they  reject? 
Bruno,  the  escaped  monk,  is  still  a  monk;  and 
his  philosophy,  impious  as  it  might  seem  to 
some,  a  religion."  The  true  reformer  will  re- 
joice with  Whittier  that — •. 

"All  the  good  the  past  hath  had 
Remains  to  make  our  own  time  glad." 

The  radical  reformer  may  say,  as  George 

Fox,  speaking  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago, 

did:     "The  Bible  is  not  the  Word  of  God; 

only  the  Divine  Spirit  speaking  in  every  man 

251 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   LIFE 

is  that  Word" ;  yet  he  will  be  glad  to  acknowl- 
edge, if  he  does  not  overlook  the  truth  which 
the  wise  Conservative  would  instil  within  him, 
that  the  word  of  God  is  found  in  the  Bible, 
and  in  every  other  sincere  book  that  has  come 
from  the  mind  of  a  man.  All  of  the  radical 
creeds  of  the  hour  are  packed  with  truths. 
The  Socialists,  Communists,  and  Anarchists 
are  speaking  words  of  wisdom  to  which  we 
can  refuse  to  listen  only  to  our  hurt.  But  if 
these  Radicals  would  win  us,  they  must  inspire 
us,  and  inspiration,  I  verily  believe,  will  be 
found  only  in  sentiments  professed  by  Con- 
servatives, but  too  seldom  adhered  to  by  them 
in  the  more  strenuous  hours  of  their  daily  lives. 
It  is  an  old  maxim,  as  old  indeed  as  Democ- 
ritus,  that,  "from  nothing,  nothing  comes"; 
and  the  inspirations  of  man  were  never  manu- 
factured in  a  vacuum. 

Let  men  despise  the  idealism  of  the  past  as 
much  as  they  please,  the  best  that  is  in  them, 
and  in  all  of  us,  has  its  root  in  that  ennobling 
culture  of  the  spirit  which  began  so  many  ages 
ago.  The  person  who  believes  firmly  that  man 
is  spirit,  and  that  man  is  here  to  grow,  to  de- 
velop, to  unfold,  in  truth,  beauty  and  goodness, 
can  never  be  a  Conservative  of  the  baser  sort. 


CONSERVATISM  AND  REFORM 

His  opposition  to  what  professes  to  be  reform, 
if  opposed  to  it  he  be,  will  be  based  upon  the 
belief  that  the  change  desired  would  work 
harm,  rather  than  good;  for  he  has  only  the 
highest  welfare  of  his  race  at  heart.  Thus 
his  opposition  will  never  be  based  upon  his  ma- 
terial self-interests,  so-called;  for  these  inter- 
ests he  has  learned  to  despise,  whenever  they 
are  found  to  conflict  with  the  higher  interests 
of  the  species;  his  prejudices  he  has  cast  aside, 
for  he  has  come  to  see  that  the  interests  of  the 
individual  and  the  interests  of  the  race  are,  in 
reality,  identical.  But  if  we  may  accept  Lib- 
erty, Equality,  and  Fraternity  as  ideals  im- 
posed upon  us  by  our  larger  selves,  for 
humanity  to  realize  in  the  now  and  here, 
the  present  should  be  for  us  a  period  of  golden 
dreams.  If  life  means  nothing,  if  the  universe 
means  nothing,  then  reform  is  only  an  illusory 
word,  which  has  come  to  confuse  us  upon  the 
highway  of  Despair;  but  if  in  our  highest 
ideals  we  may  find  the  real  meaning  of  our  per- 
sonal lives,  because  they  are  the  quintessence  of 
the  spiritual  universe,  whose  avatars  we  should 
be,  then  there  is  nothing  too  glorious  for  the 
heart  of  man  to  conceive. 


253 


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